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The idea of the Centre for Women's Studies was to create and develop a unique model of education and provide a secure and motivating space of student's creative learning and personal growth. It is an open model of education which differently connects feminist theory and feminist experience, feminist pedagogy and experience-based learning, personal creativity and feminist artistic practice. The characteristic of Women's Studies is a medley of theory, activism and art, openness, critical awareness and possibilities of new learning about women.
Since the very beginning, Women's Studies had a critical approach to topics of women and gender (dealing especially with the questions of epistemology, feminist theory and identity construction in different thematic sets and from different standpoints), trying to give insight into key questions of contemporary feminist theory and history of feminisms as well as innovate models of knowledge by experience-based learning, interactivity and using new methodical approaches. During the past ten years, the programme has been changing conceptually and in content, by constantly innovating working methods, being open to new associates, and creating new educational perspectives. The number of courses in the basic educational programme varied from seven, in the first, experimental programme, to seventeen. The main thematic contents varied through time, so in the 1999, the programme of Lesbian studies started. Because of the interest and wide range of topics, the Centre began with public lectures series called Open Thursday. Open Thursday with its special lectures, discussions and video screenings was aimed at wider public. An advanced experimental programme started in the year 2000 (Women in the cultural theories of Balkan, May 2-15, 2000 and Media: women's view 30 April- 11 May, 2001 Zagreb) which had a status of a feminist critical school for students of post-Yugoslav countries. In 2001/2002, Women's Studies, adopting the experiences of the European university system, introduced workshops, seminars and modules as thematic educational units, obligatory for all our students. From the beginning of the programme to the Spring of 2007, 295 students have completed the basic educational programme. From the end of the experimental beginnings in the Spring of 1995, to 2007, the Women's Studies programme was organized in two semesters and included modules, courses, workshops and seminars. The programme was available to all women with finished high school and full age, regardless of previous knowledge in the area of women's studies, age or occupation, ready to attend the programme regularly and learn interactively. Having completed the programme and fulfilling all the necessary criteria, like those of a regular attendance and writing assignments, the students would receive the certificate of the Centre. Political, financial and the contexts of higher education in which we performed Women's studies programme had been changing since 1995, as well as our students, their expectations and ourselves, as the creators and teachers of the programme. Many women used the Centre as a safe place for development of educational contents they found interesting and motivating in the professional sense. They had the opportunity to practice critical thinking, question borderlines of disciplines, develop argumentation backed by conclusive feminist theory which opened up new possibilities for development within women's studies. Therefore, in the year 2000 we started preparing the new concept of the educational programme of Women's Studies.
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Educational programme
