Description
Scholars of Women and Gender Studies investigate connections between gender, sexuality, identity, and power, applying this knowledge to social justice action and the liberation of all people. We take a decolonial, antiracist, antiableist, trans-affirming, and class-conscious approach to the critical study of gender, considering a diverse range of women’s and other marginalized gender perspectives, histories, and cultural creations, and contributions. The Department promotes student success within an academic, professional, and personal context through applied advocacy projects, personalized study, and opportunities for engaged and co-curricular learning. The major curriculum provides students with the occasion to investigate the intersections of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, and ability as dimensions of social identity, and as considered at local, national, and transnational levels.
This interdisciplinary major offers students a well-rounded undergraduate education leading to expertise in a wide variety of skills that prepare students for career and graduate school success. Students have an opportunity to critically investigate and better understand their society within an inclusive and justice-oriented framework.
Recent Women and Gender Studies graduates have gone on to highly competitive masters and doctorate programs in law, sociology, gender studies, history, social work, communications, public health, and English at nationally recognized research universities. Graduates stepping into the workforce have assumed careers as crisis counselors, diversity officers, lawyers, social workers, government officials, librarians, human rights activists, and Peace Corps/AmeriCorps volunteers.
Admission to the Program
Any undergraduate student can declare this major.
Program Requirements
General Education Requirements (28-31* credits)
Major Department Requirements (36 credits)
Students in the Women and Gender Studies major pursue either a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree, and must complete the corresponding degree’s requirements.
Students must earn a grade of “C” or higher for all courses in the major.
The major in Women and Gender Studies consist of 36 credits fulfilled as follows:
Required Core Courses (27 credits)
- WMS 101 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies*
- WMS/AAS/SOC 271 Gender, Race and Class*
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ONE course selected from:
- WMS 360 Sex and Culture*
- WMS/PBH 419 Human Sexualities*
- WMS/ANT/SOC 373 LGBTQ+ Cultures*
- WMS/SOC 369 Sociology of Sexualities*
- WMS 330 Global Perspectives on Women and Gender
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ONE course in Feminist Theory selected from:
- WMS 409 Feminist Theory
- WMS/AAS 423 Black Feminist Theory
- WMS 411 Feminist Research Methods
- WMS 420 Practicum in Women and Gender Studies (3-9 credits)
- WMS 421 Senior Seminar in Women and Gender Studies
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ONE course in Women’s History by advisement. As of the publication of the catalog, options include:
- WMS 324 Politics in America 1780s-1900s; Sex, Race, Culture and Party
- WMS 328 Women in America
- WMS 344 Sex, Sin and Sorority: Women in Early American Republic
- WMS 358 Family and Social Change in American History
- WMS 359 History of European Women
- WMS 366 Gender and the Islamic World
- WMS 368 Women in the Mediterranean World
- WMS 438 Women and Gender in Latin American History
- WMS 444 Sexuality, Gender, and Identity in Medieval Europe
- WMS 478 Gender and Race in Modern America
*Fulfill general education and major requirements
Elective Courses (9 credits)
- THREE Women and Gender Studies electives from approved, interdisciplinary cross-listed courses
Electives (52 credits)
Total Credits (120 credits)
Additional Degree Requirements
Students must earn a grade of C or higher for all courses in the major.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:
UNDERSTAND
Identify and explain factors contributing to how gender has been historically and politically constructed and how it intersects with race, class, sexuality, dis/ability and other social identity categories both in the US and globally.
COMMUNICATE
Analyze cultural representations and contextualize them in qualitative and quantitative scholarly research to produce an original argument about how power and privilege operate in society.
APPLY
Apply anti-racist, decolonial, and collaborative feminist approaches to social justice oriented labor and/or advocacy.