Pictured Jane Saks. Photo by Marie-Jo Proulx
In February, Columbia College Chicago announced the creation of its Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. After a lengthy nationwide search, it was Chicagoan Jane M. Saks who was appointed founding executive director. While her extensive experience in Chicago's philanthropic community will help guide Saks's work, it is her passion for culture and creativity as well as her sharp insight on gender issues that could make the Institute a unique success. By convening academics, artists, and students to work together on a variety of innovative projects, Saks hopes the Institute will foster cross-discipline cooperation, inspire original reflection, and explore progressive avenues in women's scholarship.
In a recent interview, Saks, who is openly gay, shared her thoughts on the challenges that lie ahead for the Institute, herself, and everyone who will take part in this new academic journey of discovery.
Marie-Jo Proulx: How did the Institute come about? Were you aware of it or involved from the beginning?
Jane Saks: No, I was not involved in it from the very start. … There were years of conversation … through the leadership of Ellen Stone Belic, who is a Columbia trustee and also the founding donor of the Institute … . There are also other faculty who have been very instrumental: Cheryl Johnson-Odim, the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Lisa Brock, the Chair of Liberal Education, and Teresa Prados-Torreira, the Director of the Women and Gender Studies Minor, as well as others. … They have done all this ground work for a long time, five to eight years.
Columbia has a long history of civic engagement. Creative investigation, risk-taking, debate, scholarship, process and production make it a natural and vibrant home for this Institute. The College's diversity and commitment to inclusion is reflective both in the nature of our student and faculty populations, which are comprised of virtually all ages, races, religions, geographic and cultural backgrounds, sexual and gender identities and a wide range of values, beliefs and life experiences.
MJP: The Institute's mission statement includes numerous points of focus. Could you elaborate on how and where you believe the Institute will have the most impact?
JS: I think that the arts have a distinct capacity to investigate our solitude and our interdependency. … I think of the programs of the Institute as an ecology of work. Some are on a larger scale of public engagement initiative, some are more individually based, some may be a smaller conversation. … I say an ecology in that I think that good programs need all the pieces. You can't have important research without understanding how it is applied in the world; good scholarship without understanding what that means for the creative process; developing core curriculum without understanding how that reflects back to practicing artists and to work that is happening in all those fields outside the institution. … I think a lot myself about functioning in all tenses of the verb simultaneously. So it is past, present, and future. That is really important in terms of an educational cultural institution, which is also an agent for social change.
MJP: How do you start the process of building the Institute's many programs?
JS: Some of it is deciding what it means to create new networks and models, scholarships of creation, research of debate, responsiveness, and ultimately change and shift in our culture and society. I have already developed quite a few partnerships with my new colleagues within the college. … I also believe that it is important to develop things that are not so concrete. When we are talking about social change, the creative process, gender issues, educational cultural institutions are at the edge. They are not behind the curve, they are the curve. … It really is about the world we inhabit currently as well as the one we will all meet. … I think of the Institute a lot as a public lab, a place for ideas to incubate and come together. … You can't talk about women and gender and not talk about race and class and access. I make a distinction between representation and participation. We have gotten better at representation, … but do these people have a voice? Do they participate? That is very different from representation. …
MJP: Can you give examples of specific programs and projects?
JS: I have worked with LGBT student associations and it was incredible. It was a collaboration that happened several weeks ago called 'Gender Explosion' that took place at the HotHouse. It included performance, creative work, panel discussions. … It really investigated the whole spectrum of gender issues.
Another is a program called 'Women In War.' First, what is important is to define war. It is not just traditional combat but of course disease, class, race, representation, access, space, economics. Those are all aggressive and challenging contexts. And then we need to define peace. … This program will include film, creation and discussion of work, research, it will have a real student component.
Another is with the Museum of Contemporary Art ( MCA ) . They are doing a production of The Long Gay Book which is the writings of Gertrude Stein … . It explores the romantic world of Gertrude Stein, her love affairs, the language of self-expression. The Institute will be an educational partner. … It contextualizes and de-contextualizes Stein. …
Also, issues like the role of graphic novels and animation and literature. Investigating concepts of censorship, but a lot about self-censorship in the media now. … What do we say and not say. Definitely as members of the LGBT community, we are always faced with opportunities: are we going to show who we are, are we not? How are we going to handle that? … Years ago, I was on a panel about coming out, and one of the things I talked about is that living authentically is an activist act. How one defines authentic is very personal but can be a very public endeavor. …
I am interested in political and social issues around the art of archiving gender and the arts. Who saves what. Who thinks this is important. … What becomes political, what becomes the cannon. …
And we will be starting these round-table lunches, probably a couple of times per semester, to which we will invite external people and a lot of people from Columbia. To discuss the work of faculty members, but also to engage public issues. Some of them will be open to the public, some won't. The idea will be to have 15 or 20 people and have it be really focused. … I think of them as public salons and community salons. … You will be discussing women and gender and the arts, but what if you bring in scientists and anthropologists and activists and lawyers to talk about these issues. …
This leads me to the fellowship program I want to start. The fellowship will be for faculty inside Columbia, and ultimately students also, and external guests. I will have to start very modestly, but maybe a month of being a fellow and then once a week there would be work being done with students so they can participate and benefit. There would be nothing worse than the Institute bringing in lots of fabulous people and students never meeting them. That is very important generationally. As a fellow the work may not result in a product. …
MJP: Some say that arts are now the only means through which the Left can express and communicate its vision. Would you agree with that?
JS: I really do believe that arts have the ability to make good on the democratic promise and process. Democracy is about possibilities, not about clear-cutting answers all the time. … When I was in college, we would collect money for people to go to Europe to have sex-change operations. There were no people in transition. You went, disappeared, and came back. That is not the case now and it's a good thing because we are talking about gender, not what camp you are in, but [ rather concepts like ] spectrum, identity, representation, perception. …
MJP: Looking at the mainstream media, all three major networks will have replaced their long-standing news anchor by the end of this year. What does it say that not one of those positions is likely to be filled by a woman?
JS: There is nothing to say, except it is unacceptable, right? The mainstream does not feel that the voice and leadership of a woman in that position is going to serve them well. That's a major problem. …
MJP: Could you comment on women's roles and responsibilities, and on which women leaders influenced you?
JS: I am lucky enough to have come from a very civically, politically, and socially involved family. … When I was a child, one of the things that was most influential was the summer of the Watergate hearings. My parents were not big promoters of television, but we spent the whole summer watching [ them ] and of course, it was an extraordinary experience. … What I came away with was [ the role of ] Barbara Jordan [ African American Congresswoman who delivered a landmark speech at Richard Nixon's impeachment hearings ] so I ended up writing her a letter, asking if I could come down to Texas. I wouldn't be any trouble, I would just walk behind her for a couple of days … . She wrote me this amazing letter … . She said, 'instead of walking behind me, walk beside me and commit yourself to social change.' It was that idea that we help leaders lead, we help each other participate.
