The last of the Ivy League schools without a women's studies program, Columbia University this semester introduced a surprisingly popular course that could be the foundation of a new concentration in the controversial field, officials said this week.

The new class, called "Women and Men: Power, Politics and Poetry," was expected to draw 35 students. But it started its two instructors when 70 students decided to enroll in the course, the first lecture class in women's studies Columbia has ever offered.

Since Harvard approved its Women's Studies program last fall, Columbia College has been the only Ivy school without such a course of study. But Columbia College students have been allowed to take women's studies courses at Barnard College, an all-female institution within Columbia University which has had a Women's Studies program since 1978.

Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Michael Rosenthal told the Columbia Spectator that the new course will be the foundation of any women's studies major Columbia may offer.

He said, though, that he thought Columbia College was not yet ready for a major in the new field. Columbia University already has a graduate program in women's studies.

Proponents of the controversial discipline, which detractors call illegitimate for its perceived inability to form a coherent intellectual field, said they thought there will probably be a long struggle before Columbia College offers a program in women's studies.

Columbia College will probably not have a women's studies program for years because it has refused to "appoint leading scholars and excellent staff" to found such a course of study, said Miranda Pollard, assistant director of the Institute for Women's Studies, which is part of the university's graduate program.

"There is an increasing number of students who feel that Columbia College is not interested in fully integrating women," said Barnard professor Nancy Miller, one of the new course's instructors, referring to the lack of a women's studies program.

"It's no secret that the administration is resistant to the implementation of a Women's Studies program at the College," Pollard said yesterday.

Two years ago, University Vice President for Arts and Sciences Donald C. Hood appointed a committee of Columbia's top administrators and faculty to study the state of women's studies at the school.

The committee determined that it was "premature to implement a major or minor in women's studies at the college," said Gillian Lindt, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. "We recommended a broadening of the curriculum and the introduction of new classes in fields related to women's studies," she said.

Rosenthal said the number of courses on gender issues has been growing over the last few years. "Eventually, we may be able to form a structure that would include a women's studies major, but not now," he said.