UrbanUpdate

My friend Diva alerted me to something yesterday, and I wanted to share this because I think it’s important. Read on and please take a moment to send an email to UNLV’s President, Neal Smatresk, to voice your support for Women’s Studies at UNLV. From her post:

I was dismayed when I received this note from my friend Lynn last week and I am asking for your help. If you are a blogger please repost this note and ask other bloggers to also post it. If you’re not a blogger please take a moment to write the UNLV president and voice your support for Women’s Studies at UNLV. The monetary savings if $300,000 in reality is a small amount in the budget and cost of what we all lose when departments such as this are cut is so much higher.

April 11, 2010

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As many of you are aware, Nevada has been hit especially hard by the economic downturn. Revenue from gaming and tourism – the two biggest sources of state revenue – is down by double digits; Nevada ranks number one in the country for foreclosures; and unemployment in Clark County, as of February 2010, hovers at 13.9%. The effect of the recession on the Nevada System of Higher Education has been just as dire. Since I arrived on campus in Fall 2007, state funding for UNLV has been cut by over 30%. The latest round of budget cuts – which are certainly not the last – has forced the hand of the administration to initiate a university-wide program review geared toward “vertical cuts,” or the elimination of entire academic units.

UNLV’s Women’s Studies Department is one of eight academic units on the chopping block. Eliminating Women’s Studies would save UNLV less than $300,000. But the hidden costs would be immense and irreversible, especially to UNLV’s stated mission to “nurture equity, diversity, and inclusiveness.”

UNLV has no Ethnic Studies Department, so Women’s Studies does double and, at times, triple duty to fulfill the mandate of equipping students to navigate an increasingly diverse society and global economy. If the Women’s Studies Department is eliminated, non-tenured faculty, including myself and my colleague Dr. Anita Revilla – one of only two Chicana professors in the College of Liberal Arts – will lose our jobs.

I ask that you please take a moment to send an email to UNLV’s President, Neal Smatresk, to voice your support for Women’s Studies at UNLV. The administration needs to know that people all over the country, both within and outside academia, are watching what transpires at UNLV. (I have attached a “fact sheet” detailing what would be lost if UNLV?s Women’s Studies Department is eliminated.) Las Vegas – of all places – needs a heartbeat of feminism; and UNLV students and faculty deserve the benefits that come from a vibrant, intellectually engaged, and diverse Women’s Studies Department.

Thank you for your support – and please feel free to circulate this note.

Sincerely, Lynn Comella Assistant Professor Department of Women’s Studies University of Nevada, Las Vegas