Feminism-in-Action: Dr. Diana Scully

When I first sat down to write about Dr. Diana Scully, I took on a somewhat painful iteration of how very difficult and labor-intensive it is to start a new department at a university, never mind one with a “political” grounding in feminism. The first draft of this essay was dry and somewhat impersonal, rife with discussions of task forces and reports, committees, and deans. I suppose what I wanted to capture was how much passion Diana had to have to keep pushing for a women's studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), which later became a department, how much vision she had to have to continuously reiterate the importance of the interdisciplinary study of women and girls on the university level, and how much (im)patience she had to exhibit to get it all done. Because I am Associate Chair of the department now, I have such a deep appreciation for this kind of knowledge and labor.

My peers writing for this symposium have written about Diana's impact on the field, particularly in the area of intimate partner violence, and her work with offenders. Students have written about her teaching and mentorship, and some have even made the journey from former student to colleague. I so appreciate all of these aspects of who Diana was, and I saw many of these qualities in action. What I would like to focus on is Diana's talent as an administrator and scholar of Women's Studies as a discipline, as well as her importance to me as a mentor and friend.

To build a program from the ground up in a state like Virginia in a time like the 1980s and 1990s was not an easy task. I met Diana in the late 90s as the program was gaining momentum (and more students). To be honest, Diana was both impressive and a little scary at first meeting. Intelligent, outspoken, and quirky, she was very welcoming, inviting me to program parties and events. I was a graduate student in my late 20s, teaching a seminar on feminist literary theory. She also scared me because I had never met an academic like her before. To be blunt, she took no flak from anyone. She was a direct communicator and she was confident. As a young scholar and activist, I was just learning to find my voice, and while I was intimidated, I was also impressed.

As someone deeply interested in institutional histories because they reveal something intensely local about an institution while also revealing more universal aspects of how institutions are formed and run, I learned that the history of Women's Studies at VCU is clearly also a history of Diana's career trajectory and a testimony to her tenacity. It is also a microcosm of how second-wave feminism made its way into institutions of higher education.

The first Women's Studies class was taught at VCU in the early 1970s, but Women's Studies at VCU didn’t earn departmental status until 2007 (though it was offering a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from 2001). This is how long Diana's fight was. I was teaching and working in the English department until after Diana retired, but we would get together regularly. I moved to Women's Studies in 2009. One night, while sitting on her back porch, drinking beer and catching up, Diana said, “Of course they wait for me to retire before they move you over to Women's Studies.” while rolling her eyes. I loved to go to her house and hang out with her. She was funny, warm, super smart, and a good cook. When she retired, VCU sent her a clock. A clock. She had it on her back porch and would laugh and say, “Tick, tock, Diana Scully. What an absolutely insane thing to give me.” In 2010, the department changed its name to the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies. Diana hated this change. I remember being at a party at her house and her shaking her head and saying to me, “The focus will no longer be on women, Liz” (edited to excise inappropriate language), despite my protests that this was not the case. Even after retirement, Diana was still passionate about the discipline and about this department that she built. I love this about her.

While VCU's Women's Studies program was a little later than some other programs, we can see many of the battles that Diana fought were also happening nationwide. Most notable were the fight for legitimacy within the academy and the ever-present fight for resources. Diana's struggle for legitimacy and for resources to establish the department is testimony to her feminism-in-action. When I first came into the department in 2009, I busied myself with this gigantic archive of meeting notes, drafts of essays, programs from conferences, student files, and so much more, organized into folders that may or may not have denoted their contents. After organizing this archive, I began to read through it. At every stage of the process of discipline formation at VCU, Diana was met with resistance. But her tenacity, passion, and vision for what Women's Studies could be at VCU was so obvious, as it came through in these dusty documents.

Diana was such an amazing mentor to me. As I finished graduate school and went to work at VCU, Diana would take me to conferences with her, talk to me about my teaching and research, and cajole me to take students abroad. Taking students abroad to international conferences was one of Diana's passions. Every year, she would take students to the Women's Worlds conference, which was in a different country each time. Diana also negotiated a scholarship for students so they would be able to travel. To honor Diana's legacy, I take students abroad every summer.

Diana Scully could have enjoyed a successful career as a researcher and teacher in Sociology. She still would have been known for her academic work and her teaching. For many, this is enough. But not for Diana. Diana was also an activist, a foul-mouthed trailblazer, and a beautiful friend. Her mark is so much larger than the amazing research and teaching she did throughout her career. She created a space for folks like me to come after her, and for that, and for so much more than that, I am grateful to her.