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Ms grant/30

Expectations of everyone involved in the FSW were -- and remain -- high. FSW faculty offers (partly through its Extension Program) technical instruction in a huge number of areas, which fall roughly into the categories of visual, environmental and language arts. The emphasis is on content: What does each of us have to say, out of our own experience, dreams, visions, feelings? The emphasis is on using -- often creating -- forms which allow that content full and effective realization. At the heart of the curriculum is consciousness raising: weekly sessions which deal with every conceivable aspect of our lives, beginning with what FSW faculty call "the big four": money, authority, sexuality, work. These sessions become a primary means of working through material to the point where it can be transmuted into art.

In addition to an insistance [[insistence]] on the validity -- even necessity -- of daily experience as the basis of art, feminist education, as practiced at the FSW, means an absence of authoritarian structures. Judith Loischild, currently a first-year FSW student, says she has found that "You don't have to do anything. Who's going to say, 'Where's that paper?' This leaves a lot of responsibility to the individual."

FSW students are also expected to assume a great deal of responsibility and leadership in the overall functioning of the Woman's Building. From the outset, the FSW (faculty and students both) has provided the core energy, that sustains the building.