Latest update January 3rd, 2025 12:03 AM
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One year later…Gender Studies Institute still in “setting-up” phase
– but has ambitious plans to advance pertinent issues
Although it was launched just over one year ago, the Institute of Gender Studies at the University
Chairperson of the Institute of Gender Studies, Vanda Radzik
of Guyana (UG) is still in a ‘setting up’ phase. This state of affairs has been acknowledged by current Chairperson of the Institute’s Board of Directors, Ms. Vanda Radzik.
However, Radzik noted that although ‘setting up’ of the Institute is progressing slowly, senior functionaries of the university have pledged their support.
“We have the ‘buy-in’ of the new Vice Chancellor (Professor Ivelaw Griffith) and the Chancellor (Professor Nigel Harris) himself, who is very keen to see gender take root the way it has in terms of study and research at the three campuses of the University of the West Indies,” Radzik informed.
Radzik, who also serves as a Commissioner on the Women and Gender Equality Commission, has the support of two of the Commission’s members – Ms Sandra Hooper and Ms. Nicole Cole – who also serve on the Board of the Gender Institute.
“We have a very good team of university professionals as well as civil society members and we are doing our best to move it forward,” said Radzik, of the Gender Studies Institute.
But Radzik, speaking at a recent press conference, revealed that plans are apace to advertise shortly for a Director of Gender Studies as well as for a Post Graduate Senior Researcher.
“Our Women and Gender Equality Commission actually gave us a big push a few years ago when we initiated and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the then Vice Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, and then we had the launch, and quite a lot of what we have in mind is in that memo,” the Gender Studies Institute Chairperson related.
According to her, the Board of the Institute is soon to meet with current Vice Chancellor, Professor Griffith, in order to update and renew the existing agreement, and give it a further push forward.
Radzik said that the Institute is also poised to benefit via some crucial support from “good partners – the University of York in Canada, the University of the West Indies and the Commonwealth University of Learning…” The partnering entities have all developed modules that the Gender Studies Institute hopes to take advantage of.
But Radzik disclosed that the Institute this year was able to “review all of its learning modules and courses that relate to gender studies from the Women’s Leadership Institute through to the Ministry (of Social Protection) through to courses at UG that are currently being carried in other faculties at UG”.
Radzik revealed that the Institute has found that a lot of those modules and courses when reviewed by stakeholders were found to be very relevant. “So we actually have a body of courses that are sort of ready, although they could be updated, but ready to be delivered.”
Added to this, Radzik disclosed that “we are actually thinking of having a special course at the Institute of Gender Studies for the media and for media practitioners, so media practitioners can not only get certificates, but also be able to extend the learning and knowledge-building in our own society on what is gender and why it is so critical to development in every single field”.
As such, she noted that the Institute is embracing the idea that between 2017 and 2018 it will actually be able to launch the proposed programme.
According to the Chairperson, the Vice Chancellor has committed to ensuring that a foundation course for every single UG student will be delivered through the Gender Institute, so that across faculties, everyone attending the university will be sensitised in gender and development.
The Gender Studies Institute was introduced to help influence policy and serve as a hub for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teaching, research, dialogue, and action on local and transnational issues on women and gender.
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