Program Administration and Development (PAD)
The Program Administrators Caucus first met at the 1983 NWSA Annual Conference and became the Program Administration and Development Committee in 2006. The PAD Committee consists of women's studies program administrators (chairs, directors, coordinators) whose programs, departments or other academic units are member institutions of NWSA. This body is convened once a year for a Business Meeting at the annual NWSA Conference and is sustained by the PAD Listserv. The PAD Committee is a standing committee in NWSA specifically designed to represent the interests and needs of administrators of women's studies programs and departments to the Governing Council of NWSA and to assist NWSA in meeting the needs of women's administrators and their departments and programs. Programs and departments gain automatic access to our PAD Community with active institutional memberships.
Become an Institutional Member
Annual Chair and Directors Meeting
Established by former Executive Director, Allison Kimmich, in 2014, the NWSA Chair and Director Meeting is a one-day workshop for the chairs or directors of women’s, gender, and/or sexuality studies programs and women’s center directors who are current institutional members of NWSA.
This event is intended to promote field-building by bringing together program and department chairs and women's center directors for a day-long meeting as an added benefit of institutional membership. Participants will exchange ideas and strategies focused on program and center administration, curriculum development, and pedagogy, among other topics.
Past Chair and Director's Meeting Agendas
The Pre-Conference
The first PAD Pre-Conference was held at the 2000 NWSA Annual Conference. The PAD Pre-Conference provides administrators with ideas, strategies, and approaches to both strengthen and grow WGSS programs in hard times. These include: supporting diverse leadership, building coalitions across campus and across town, fundraising, battling backlash, making external reviews successful, incorporating service learning requirements, and more.
In 2000, the PAD Committee initiated the Women of Color Leadership Project (WoCLP). The WoCLP is now jointly sponsored by the NWSA Women of Color Caucus (WoCC), Program Administration and Development Committee (PAD), and the Women’s Centers Committee (WCC) in conjunction with the PAD and WCC Pre-Conferences.
If you are interested in submitting to the 2024 PAD Pre-Conference, you can submit your panel proposal by clicking the button below!
Submit to the PAD Pre-Conference