While demonstrating the potential of feminist education to promote positive social change, experiences with the women's studies programs at Staten Island Community College (SICC) and Brooklyn College (BC) also dramatize the need for women's studies to overcome factionalism and middle-class elitism in order to construct a pedagogy for oppressed women. The SICC program, initiated in 1972, allowed women on the verge of autonomy to share life experiences in informal groups and to help one another pursue aspirations beyond traditional women's role. Yet after several successful efforts and just as the program was to become formalized through the establishment of a women's study center, differences between academic, Marxist, and lesbian feminists rendered the program directionless and ineffective. Even more complicated were the difficulties encountered at BC, where conflicts between women's studies faculty and women's center staff were compounded by problems of student motivation. BC students, less affluent than SICC women, existed in a state of dependency created by welfare and marriage, and were unwilling to engage in critical dialog or take responsibility for their education. Therefore, the program at BC emphasized a core curriculum of basic skills with a network of peer support. Knowledge about the role of minority and working class women is needed to advance the BC program from this continuing education role. (JP)