Ford Supports Div Program For Women

The Ford Foundation last month gave the Divinity School a $9500 grant to evaluate the school's five-year-old women's studies program.

The study, which will begin this spring and end in November 1978, will determine the future structure of the program, Constance H. Buchanan, the coordinator of women's programs at the school, said yesterday.

The women's studies program, the only official one in the University, presently hires five scholars each year to teach and research women's studies in theology.

The Ford Foundation agreed to support the study because the Divinity School may provide a model for other schools trying to integrate women's studies into the curriculum, Buchanan added.

Buchanan and Krister Stendahl, dean of the Divinity School, submitted a proposal for the grant in November 1977 because "we wanted to strengthen the program and look at its goals and purposes in the larger context of the Divinity School," Buchanan said.

Although Stendahl has repeatedly expressed his support for the program, in January 1977 he proposed the abolition of the coordinator's office in order to reduce the school's budget deficit.