Libraries Partners with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program to Preserve Its History

On March 25, Pepperdine Libraries and the Women’s and Gender Studies program hosted a 25th anniversary celebration for the program, with additional support from Alumni Affairs. The celebration honored the program’s legacy and premiered an archival collection created in collaboration between the current program coordinator, Katie Frye, and Pepperdine Librarians Chris Miehl, archivist for special collections and university archives, and Bailey Berry, librarian for digital publishing, curation, and conversion. Over lunch from Prince Street Pizza, more than 60 attendees heard comments from Frye, Berry, and Miehl about the history and focus of the program and their work creating the collection. Seaver student and Women’s and Gender Studies minor, Saskia Jager (‘26), shared thoughts about the unique value of the program. On display was also a research poster created by Jager and fellow Women’s and Gender Studies minor Kyra Hatton (‘25) examining the history of the program. At the end of the event, raffle prizes sponsored by local women-owned businesses were awarded to randomly selected attendees.

Women’s and Gender Studies got its start in the late 1990s, when Erika Olbricht, then a newly minted assistant professor of English, noticed the lack of gender-based curriculum at the University. She found like-minded colleagues in Julianne Smith, Cynthia Novak, and Lee Ann Carroll, and organized a meeting of 12 professors in 1999 to discuss the possibility of introducing a new curriculum. Together they submitted a proposal for a new minor to the Seaver Academic Council, which included letters of support from Seaver students, many of whom were already involved in the Feminist Forum, which had been started in 1997. It carefully considered how the program would fit into and support Pepperdine’s Christian Mission. The proposal was approved in 2000 and the minor launched at the start of the fall 2001 semester.

Frye became the program coordinator in 2019. As the program approached its 25th anniversary, she began asking questions about its origins and development. What she discovered was an incomplete picture with large gaps in the collective memory. She approached Special Collections and Archives to discover what existed in the institutional record and discuss how to make sure the program had a place in that record. Together with Miehl and Berry, Frye set to work gathering a paper trail and putting together a timeline for the Women’s and Gender Studies program. With her help, Pepperdine Libraries took a community-centered approach to creating the archival collection that centered the voices and perspectives of individuals from the program. Over the course of a year and a half, the team recorded oral history interviews with fifteen individuals including former coordinators, founding faculty, current faculty, alumni, and current students. Hatton assisted Frye by researching the program’s history and completed an internship with Special Collections to help process the collection and create the finding aid. 

Pepperdine Libraries continues to collect photographs and oral histories related to the Women’s and Gender Studies program. Anyone interested in contributing should email specialcollections@pepperdine.edu.