Diane L. Fowlkes papers

Diane Lowe Fowlkes, born in Memphis on October 30, 1939, spent most of her childhood and youth in the Memphis area. After graduating with a B.A. in French Language and Literature from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) in 1961, she worked as a secretary in the Adult Education Center and also for a short period in the college's Office of Development. In 1968 she came to Atlanta, where she worked as a secretary, first at The Atlanta Ballet and later in the Office of Research at Georgia State University. While she undertook graduate study in Political Science at Georgia State, she worked as an administrative assistant in the Bureau of Business and Economic Research. She received her M.A. in Political Science from Georgia State in 1971, and continued her education at Emory University, graduating with a Ph.D. in Political Science from Emory in 1974.

Fowlkes began her 25-year career as a professor at Georgia State in 1973, rising through the ranks from Assistant to Associate Professor in 1980, and to full Professor in 1992. Throughout her distinguished career, she worked to establish courses and programs in Women's Studies. She was instrumental in the formation of the Women's Studies Group in 1974, in the establishment of the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Women's Studies in 1984, and above all, in the establishment of the Women's Studies Institute in 1994 and in the gaining of approval of the Master of Arts degree in Women's Studies in 1995. Dr. Fowlkes served as the Interim Director of Women's Studies from 1990 to 1994, and became the first Director of the Women's Studies Institute, serving from 1995 to 1998. In 1998, the year she retired from Georgia State, she was appointed Professor Emerita; during the spring commencement of that year, Dr. Fowlkes was honored with the University's Exceptional Service Award.

In addition to her service to Georgia State University, Professor Fowlkes served in numerous official capacities on committees, task forces, and associations in Political Science and Women's Studies, including the American Political Science Association, the Georgia Political Science Association, the Women's Caucus for Political Science, and the National Women's Studies Association. She directed several grants during her career, most notably a grant titled "A Model for Gender-Balancing the General Curriculum in Higher Education" (with Charlotte McClure) under the auspices of the Women's Educational Equity Act. Drs. Fowlkes and McClure edited a collection of essays from the project conference, Feminist Visions: Toward a Transformation of the Liberal Arts Curriculum (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984). Fowlkes has made major contributions as a scholar, with fourteen published articles, four book chapters, and a book titled White Political Women: Paths from Privilege to Empowerment (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992). Since retiring from Georgia State, she has published an article and two book chapters and is at work on another book in feminist philosophy.