Editors: Reporters and photographers are welcome to attend the Nov. 4 event.
Colorado's oldest women's studies program will celebrate its 30th anniversary at the University of Colorado at Boulder Nov. 4 with a private reception including some of the program's original faculty members and students.
CU President Elizabeth Hoffman will offer remarks at the reception, which will be held at the Koenig Alumni Center from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The event is not open to the public.
"We are very excited to host this birthday party for our program," said director Polly McLean. "Several of the people -- students, faculty and staff -- who were instrumental in getting women's studies started at CU-Boulder will be attending our celebration."
In addition to its standing as the oldest program of its kind in the state, CU-Boulder's women's studies department is one of the oldest in the nation. San Diego State University featured the first women's studies program in 1969-70, according to McLean, and CU-Boulder was one of a handful of schools that followed suit in 1974.
In 1998 the program was bolstered when the Colorado Commission on Higher Education officially recognized women's studies as a bachelor of arts degree program. The department also offers a minor and a graduate certificate.
Courses challenge students to critically examine the intersection of gender, race, class and sexuality within a wide-ranging field of study that includes the disciplines of anthropology, history, English, philosophy, psychology, religion and sociology.
Though one of the smaller departments on the CU-Boulder campus, women's studies graduated almost 100 students from 1999 to 2003, more than 22 other CU-Boulder programs and departments. Graduates have gone on to distinguished careers in law, medicine, business, education and social work.
McLean is particularly proud of the service record of women's studies students. "From the spring of 1989 to this fall, 241 of our students have participated in internships at nonprofit organizations and schools around Boulder," she said. "Our students have contributed more than 35,000 hours of service to the Boulder community at facilities like the Boulder Valley Women's Health Center, Safehouse Progressive Alliance, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, the YWCA, the Boulder County justice system and many others."
The department's Oral/Living History Project has bolstered the records at Norlin Library and Carnegie Library. "We needed to record the voices and maintain the history of women who haven't been part of recorded history in Boulder County," McLean said. "It's an amazing project. This is a very progressive community where people are involved heavily in causes of social justice. The history of these people had not been recorded."
Thanks to the work of faculty and students between 1998 and 2003, the libraries now retain the first recorded histories of Boulder County African-American women, women's activists, and women and men in service agencies.
For more information about CU-Boulder women's studies visit .