Introduction
The Department of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) at WWU pursues critical inquiry through queer and feminist scholarship, teaching, and activism. We draw on intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to study how sex, gender, and sexuality are shaped by race, indigeneity, ethnicity, class, age, ability, nationality, and religion. We interrogate the conditions that render specific populations vulnerable to violence in a range of local and transnational contexts. Through classes, service learning, and internships, students develop a critical, socially engaged sense of how gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by the world around them. WGSS is a field born from struggle and is committed to critical thinking and engagement in social justice.
Why Consider a Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Major?
The WGSS major provides students with the skills to critically and actively engage with the world around them. Our plan of study equips students in various ways: to understand, apply, analyze, and critique key concepts and theoretical positions in feminist, gender, sexuality, race, indigeneity, ethnic, class, ages, disability, national, and religious studies; to assess and denaturalize identities and experiences as embedded in and produced by interlocking and intersectional systems of power and inequalities; to integrate liberatory analysis into a variety of scholarly, social, political, creative, and activist practices.
Students enjoy small class sizes, close faculty interaction, personalized mentorship and advising, and internships. Our community is intellectually challenging, supportive, and creative. Our diverse faculty encourages scholarship that is interdisciplinary and intersectional.
WGSS students become innovative thinkers and engaged citizens who understand the increasingly diverse world in which they live. They learn the most in-demand skills for the current job market including critical thinking, effective writing skills, public speaking, collaboration, and leadership skills that can be applied to various careers including, but not limited to, psychology, education, environmental science, law, healthcare, public policy, and the nonprofit sector. A WGSS degree can be partnered with any other major or minor on campus.
Student Resources
Department website: Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Contact information: Department Manager, Ren Schreuder, College Hall 204, 360-650-3851, ren.schreuder@wwu.edu or wgss@wwu.edu
Department advising: Visit the WGSS major webpage for more information
Degree Works: Current students should also log on to Degree Works to check student-specific program progress.
Career Services Center: Connect major to a career
Sample careers: The department prepares students to pursue careers in graduate school, law, social service, counseling, public policy, health care, teaching, social activism, and the arts. WGSS alumni have become professors, lawyers, politicians, psychologists, journalists, public health professionals, environmental scientists, health organization directors, grant managers, business owners, and so much more. A WGSS Major will make you an asset to any workplace.
How to Declare (Admission and Declaration Process):
Students who wish to declare a major in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies can find the declaration form on the WGSS webpage or contact the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies office. For program advisement, contact Professor Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre, College Hall, 360-650-4212, raelynn.schwartz-dupre@wwu.edu.
Grade Requirements
A grade of C- or better is required for a student’s major or minor courses, and supporting courses for majors and minors.
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