Dartmouth ‘Gender Research Institute’ Shuts Down Due to Lack of Funding

The “Gender Research Institute” at Dartmouth College has shut down after four years of operation due to a lack of funding.

The institute was shut down without prior warning by Dartmouth administrators on July 1. According to a report from a local news outlet, the Gender Research Institute was funded through a limited-term grant and the work of the institute will continue under Dartmouth’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department.

“As an institute GRID was a meeting ground where researchers, teachers, students, outreach professionals, and scholar-activists from across the globe came together to study, debate, and translate intellectual discussion and practical experience into projects of social justice on a multitude of local, national, and international scales,” a description on the institute’s website reads.”

Despite that it appears that much of the work and research will continue under the banner of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, many former staffers of the institute were dismayed at the news, arguing that it played a vital role on campus.

“We were one of the few institutes that brought in scholars with high social impact, scholars whose connection with social change is immediate,” she said. “The spring seminar and postdoctoral program have a direct impact on the quality of intellectual life that Dartmouth offers its faculty and students as well as its being a prime site to tackle the complexities surrounding diversity, academic freedom, race relations, and the many inequalities facing women and the LGBTQI communities,” GRID director Annabel Martín said in a statement “Many students have life-changing stories that GRID facilitated for them; many faculty found their home community through a GRID seminar or felt inspired to think about their disciplinary training from an interdisciplinary framework; our international visiting scholars are no longer. GRID provided food for the mind and for the soul and had a core of strong ethical commitment to social change. We tried to bring all of these energies together. Sadly and inexplicably gone.”

Martín claims that she met with administrators earlier in the year to discuss the search for a new director due to the reality that her four-year term was coming to a close. “We were excited about the progress of the institute itself,” Martín said about the meeting. “Then on July 1, with no prior warning, GRID is gone.”