The institute is co-directed by Isabel Marcus and Margaret Acara, and reports to the Office of the Provost.

Marcus, professor in the School of Law and noted human-rights scholar, will assume responsibility for the institute's teaching functions. She recently was named director of UB's Women's Studies Program.

Acara, professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will direct the institute's research arm.

A 10-member executive committee, as well as a steering committee with more than 30 representatives from each faculty and professional school is helping to formulate and review the institute's programs.

The directors say their mandate is to promote exponential growth in disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and teaching options associated with gender studies. The institute, they added, will encourage and assist faculty and students to develop new teaching and research directions. It also will work with them to find new sources of grant money to fund some of these projects.

The institute had its origins in a proposal made more than six years ago by the university's Graduate Group on Feminist Studies (GGFS). Noting the rapid growth of, and interest in, research and teaching on women and gender among faculty and graduate students, the proposal called for the university to support, promote and facilitate these efforts.

The proposal, studied by committees for several years, was mentioned by Provost Thomas E. Headrick in his academic planning report issued in February. It went through a review process this past summer. The university is underwriting the institute's first three years of operation with a $240,000 grant.

"I think the institute is going to be extremely attractive to UB students and faculty," Marcus said. "It is going to have a pro-active, expansive program, not a reactive one-a program that we think will eventually have national and international connections."

Marcus and Acara plan to consult next semester with all faculties and professional schools to assess and encourage faculty interest in women and gender issues. They also will suggest connections with colleagues in other disciplines who share similar concerns.

A productive relationship between the new institute, the GGFS and the Women's Studies Program is critical, Marcus said, and that connection is currently being fine-tuned. She said that by January, the institute will fully incorporate the activities and members of the GGFS, currently directed by Carolyn Korsmeyer, professor of philosophy.

The Women's Studies Program, located in the Department of American Studies, will assume the teaching mandate of the institute.

"Women's Studies has been quite successful in cross-listing courses and encouraging interdisciplinary scholarship," Marcus noted.

"The institute will support those programs," she added, "but we also intend to build into the institute a broad-based affiliation with scholars, researchers, teachers and graduate students in many other fields as well. These fields include, but are not limited to, nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, law, art, medicine, architecture, biology, research and clinical psychology, sociology, classics, to name a few.

"We have a dazzling array of basic intellectual resources," she added. "There are many talented women, as well as some men, interested in gender as a relevant area for their work."

Acara said five "research clusters" have been identified to date based on research interests of faculty members. They are: gender and violence, women's health, the impact of changing welfare laws, education on women and gender in the schools, and feminist topics in the humanities.

She said that she and Marcus will be meeting with faculty members and staff "to identify interests and develop some cross-disciplinary interactions."

The co-directors have been very much encouraged by the response to the institute to date. Faculty and professional staff members from both campuses, Marcus said, "have responded with enormous enthusiasm and energy."

She noted, "Our goal is to develop a first-rate interdisciplinary center- a blockbuster program; one that will be extremely attractive to faculty and students and will at the same time enhance our understanding of gender-related issues."

Acara added: "There's great interest and energy to get going in this area. These women and men have waited a long time to get going. It's exciting. It's time."

Marcus said that the work of the institute "must go hand-in-hand with other transformations in the university" as outlined in the 1996 report of the President's Task Force on Women at UB, which she called "a very significant document that summarizes just how drastic the situation is for women at UB.

"We have deeply-rooted misogynist practices here," she said, "that require a woman who wants to 'get ahead' to fit into the prevailing male standard for women. That standard defines how she should look and behave, how she should express her concerns, and even when or if she should be heard.

"These practices are systemic in nature," Marcus noted, "and reflect an anachronistic mentality. If UB wishes to be a university of the 21st century, many, many changes will have to occur here.

"At least some administrators and faculty are aware of this reality," she said.

"The institute is only one small part of this needed change and no one should assume that the institute alone is sufficient to remedy the entire situation."

In addition to Marcus and Acara, members of the institute's executive committee are Mary Hale Meyer, staff assistant in the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Development, who is associate director of the institute; Korsmeyer; Bernice Noble, professor of microbiology; graduate student Penka Skachkova; Margarita Vargas, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, and Carol Zemel, professor and chair of the Department of Art History. Elizabeth Kennedy, professor of American studies, and Ruth Meyerowitz, associate professor of American studies, are ex-officio members of the executive committee.

Members of the steering committee are Beth Tauke, School of Architecture and Planning; Andrew Hewitt, Jolene Rickard and Reinhild Steingroever McRae, Faculty of Arts and Letters; Mirdza Neiders, School of Dental Medicine; Keri Hornbuckle, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Hank Bromley, Jacquelyn Mitchell and Lois Weiss, Graduate School of Education; Paul Kostyniak, School of Health Related Professions; Lucinda Finley and Terry Miller, School of Law; Suzanne Hildebrandt, University Libraries; Debra Connelley, School of Management; Jo Freudenheim, Phyllis Leppert, Peter Nickerson and Monica Spaulding, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Mary Bisson, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Mecca Cranley, School of Nursing; Marilyn Morris, School of Pharmacy; Monica Jardine, Deidre Lynch, Patricia Mason, Jack Meacham and Tamara Thornton, Faculty of Social Sciences; Hilary Weaver, School of Social Work; Lorraine Oak, Office of the Dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Elmira Mangum-Daniel, Office of the Provost; Carole Smith Petro, Office of the Senior Vice President; Sandra Fazekas, Center for the Arts; Nancy Michalko, Office of the Vice President for University Advancement and Development, and Loyce Stewart, Office of Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action.