Department Goals

Department Goals:
Women's and Gender Studies prepares students for a variety of employment opportunities and for professional and graduate education in a number of fields. The required internship, and the ability to integrate a minor (including the Women's Health minor) into the major or facilitate a double major, permits students to build their academic credentials and acquire career-specific skills and expertise.

• To train students to meet the demands of an increasingly ethnically and gender-diverse workplace;
• To offer courses that document women's lives and critically examine gender ideologies;
• To provide understanding about, and help bridge differences between women and men based on race, ethnicity, social class, age, sexual preference, etc.
• To provide a model for interdisciplinary teaching, pedagogical experimentation, and the development of teaching skills;
• To generate and disseminate new research on women and gender issues;
• To work with other university and community women's and men's organizations to effect social change that will mean greater equality, freedom, and fuller lives for both women and men; and
• To provide students with internship opportunities in university, community, and business organizations focused on serving women or advocating gender transformation.

Women's & Gender Studies prepares students for the way the world is and the way the world is becoming by helping women and men examine alternative institutional arrangements that will help them cope with an increasingly diverse workplace and the combination of work and family responsibilities. Women's and Gender Studies graduates hold tools--knowledge, self-awareness, critical thinking skills, research training, writing skills and breadth of perspective--that public service organizations, the media, private industry, government, and graduate schools want and need.

The Women's and Gender Studies major and minor are excellent preparation for students going into teaching, counseling, social work, public relations, public policy, and management; students going on for advanced degrees in a variety of fields, including law and medicine; students seeking advocacy work in political action organizations; and students pursuing a wide variety of other career options. Women's health is a large and growing area of research and policy interest in the U.S. The career minor in Women's Health is suitable for those interested in pursuing careers as nurses, physicians, midwives, clinical psychologists, health educators, public health workers, research analysts and policy makers.

Each semester the Women's and Gender Studies Program publishes a brochure listing all program offerings and courses on women and gender in other departments. Copies of the brochure may be obtained in the Women's & Gender Studies office.