The Women's Faculty Association of CSU Chico (WFA) is a social, intellectual and advocacy organization dedicated to the professional advancement of women in higher education. Its goals are equality of opportunity, participation and perspective for women faculty, and the exchange of information, ideas and support necessary to achieve these goals. See the complete Mission Statement (May 1997).
WFA Happy Hour, Friday November 9th at 5 PM at Tres Hombres.
See "old" colleagues and meet some new ones!
Email lburris@csuchico.edu for more informationHistory
The CSU Chico Women's Faculty Association (WFA) began in the mid to late l970's. Meetings were lively and well attended. Women socialized, presented their current research, and strategized over hiring, promotions, and campus politics. Administrators were invited to address the group on issues of concern. Primary among the issues were gender and racial equity in appointment, retention and promotion, sexual harassment, and expanding traditional disciplinary boundaries to include new feminist and multicultural scholarship. By the mid-1990's, some advances had been made in each of these areas, not without struggle. More women faculty were being hired and promoted. Multicultural and Gender Studies became a department and Women's Studies an approved option for study. New faculty hires increased. From 1998-2000, with Becky White, Philosophy, serving as Coordinator, WFA provided mentoring for new women faculty.
Mentoring Program Brochure (1999)
The program was designed to complement the official university orientation for new faculty by offering a more individual and ongoing type of mentoring. Fourteen established women faculty mentored 28 new women faculty the first year. Mentoring seemed to be most effective when mentor and mentee had offices nearby, allowing frequent, casual encounters. WFA members also offered support to junior faculty through RTP workshops and a Strategic Women's Action Team (SWAT) that women faculty could contact with concerns.
SWAT brochure (2002)
A Fall Breakfast to introduce new women faculty to other faculty women continued until 2002, when the declining number of new hires and budget considerations led to its suspension. Since it's inception, the WFA typically hosted at least one social gathering each semester. In Fall 2004, Lana Burris and Mimi Bommersbach, Psychological Counseling Center, stepped forward as the new coordinators of a new Women's Faculty Association.
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