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Women's Studies Certificate

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The Women’s Studies Certificate Program brings together faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to investigate the status and position of women as participants in past and contemporary societies. This interdisciplinary certificate program is an adjunct to a student’s academic major. Students will explore gender-based issues from an historical, literary, and multi-cultural perspective.

The mission of the Women’s Studies Certificate Program is to provide a multi- and interdisciplinary consideration of gender and sexuality, and to look more closely at aspects of the human experience that often are neglected and overlooked. The Women’s Studies Certificate provides students the opportunity to explore issues related to gender and sexuality across a variety of disciplines. It attempts to eliminate institutional and structural gender discrimination by examining cultural assumptions about femininities and masculinities, foregrounding the significance of academic research on gender and sexuality, and questioning the differential impacts of various political, economic, and social systems on women and men.

The structure of the 21-credit program reflects faculty sensitivity to the range of interests that motivate student participation in a Women’s Studies curriculum. The required introductory course (WS 151) and the capstone senior seminar in Women’s Studies (WS 495) facilitate inquiry into theoretical and applied aspects of questions important to each student.

Goals for Student Learning

Students completing the Women’s Studies Certificate Program will have a firm understanding of the role of gender and sexual identity in a variety of areas including history, health, geography, culture, politics, literature, and language. Furthermore, the certificate will enhance preparation for a number of professional and post-graduate areas including government, law, industrial relations, social services, politics, medicine, and education.

Students receiving a Women’s Studies Certificate will be expected to:

  • Describe how females and males affect and are affected by cultural definitions of gender and interrogate cultural constructions of gender including binary gender assumptions.
  • Recognize the underlying assumptions of historical, literary, rhetorical and/or health models of women and analyze how they have affected women cross-culturally.
  • Identify women’s activities and accomplishments across a variety of cultures and historical contexts and discern contributions that conventionally have been neglected.
  • Illustrate how discrimination, stereotyping, and prejudice affect people’s expectations of themselves and others in families, intimate relationships, careers, and society.
  • Demonstrate familiarity with feminist literature and current scholarship on gender, sexuality, race, and class.

Women's Studies Certificate Faculty and Staff