Undergraduate Program
Undergraduate Program
Undergraduate Director:Dr. Yana Rodgers
Sr. Department Administrator: Monique Gregory
The Women's & Gender Studies undergraduate program, founded in the early seventies, is one of the oldest in the nation. Currently, the program has over 200 majors and minors and serves over 1900 students annually in a wide array of core and cross-listed courses. The major, approved in 1984, introduces students to significant issues and debates in feminist scholarship, theory, and activism.
“Women’s & Gender Studies seek to enrich traditional disciplinary approaches not simply by including women but by transforming the categories, through which knowledge is produced and disseminated.”
All courses are interdisciplinary and each considers the complex dynamics among race, ethnicity, locality, class, gender, and sexuality. The readings and discussions in each class represent a wide variety of women's perspectives concerning issues such as: the conceptualization of difference, the production and recreation of femininity and masculinity, language and gender, the division of labor, women and poverty, sexual violence, reproductive rights, gay and lesbian theory, gender and popular theory, and contemporary feminist politics. Ultimately, we strive to ground both research and theory in the everyday realities of feminist activism around the globe. Women’s & Gender Studies program faculty, students and staff are active members and leaders of academic and community women’s organizations.
The WGS alumnae pursue their professional career in various fields. One-fifth of our graduates continue their education in graduate programs in different fields (political science, English, law) around the country. Many alumnae also engage in work in the area of health and pharmacy (about one fourth). Others choose law (one-fifth of the alumnae), education (one fourth) media or computer studies. Many WGS graduates continue their activist work in non-governmental organizations that engage with women and work, international politics and women’s leadership.
Interns work in organizations related to women's and gender studies. Supervision by assigned staff at the placement site. Seminar, student journal, paper, and assessment of work experience required.
Prerequisite: 01:988:301 or 302 or 303. Permission of undergraduate director required.
Students work in organizations related to women's and gender studies. Supervision by assigned staff at the placement. Paper, student journal, and assessment of work performed at placement required. Permission of undergraduate director required.
RN Response Network provides medical assistance in the context of natural disasters wherever they may occur. This internship placement involves 150-180 hours of professional work with RN Response Network in conjunction with a research paper that links this professional experience with relevant academic work on humanitarian intervention.
*Topic varies with instructor. The requirements for the course would be the equivalent of any 400-level course in the department.
Overview of "care economy." Explores recent efforts to heighten its profit-making potential; considers long-term implications of efforts to deskill and outsource care work.
Explores aspects of pharmaceutical industry. Analyzes burdens and benefits of drug research and development on different populations.
Investigates shifting modes of food production, distribution, diet, and health. Compares consequences of changes for women in global North with women in global South.
*Explores relationship between debt and economic crisis; examines impact of austerity policies on women's health in various nations.
Examines women's health in relationship to contradictions between capitalist growth and resource exhaustion. Health consequences of environmental crises linked to new markets and technologies.
Examines how resource distribution shapes health risk, access to health care, and clinical outcomes. Relationship of gender, class, race, sexuality, and nation to health.