General Learning Outcomes

The goal of the Women’s Studies minor is to enhance students’ understanding of the complexity of our shared world through the analysis of the construction of gender identities (an architectonic issue) by assisting the students’ ability to read, analyze, and write critically, thoughtfully, clearly, coherently, and persuasively about how these issues impact their own lives, those of others, and their major fields of study. The students as citizens and educated members/leaders of their communities and the world need to know and appreciate their own gendered human cultural heritage and its development in historic and global contexts. Also, through study of the implications of gender and gender categories, students will develop a broader understanding of issues, constructs, and value systems within their own individual major fields of study. Because of its implicit multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, the Women’s Studies Program borrows substantively from all fields of study, and Women’s Studies paradigms will concomitantly serve to strengthen both the investigations and goals of students’ major fields of study and their materials, and to deepen the students’ appreciations of their own major fields.

Learning Outcomes

Courses satisfying the Women’s Studies minor must meet all learning outcomes for this program. Students will demonstrate the ability to:

1. critically read, recognize, and analyze the gendered identities presented to them in any text;

2. understand how gender expectations function in culture, history, and social dynamics;

3. investigate how gender constructs impact their everyday lives and issues within their major or current field of study;

4. begin to appreciate/understand other cultures and peoples through investigation of the role that gender plays in their societies;

5. construct alternative ways to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate their views of their major and related fields;

6. initiate positive change in terms of gender definition/stereotypes; and

7. enhance their overall general education by synthesizing the various disciplines through this minor’s pedagogical approach.

 Curriculum Requirements

18 hours required: WMST (Women’s Studies) 2000

       4* classes at the 3000 or 4000 level selected from the approved course list, including WMST 4100

                               WMST 4000 Capstone Course

*Students may use one 2000 level course from the approved list to fulfill 1 of these class requirements.

 List of Approved Courses from which at least 3 classes must be selected (4 if WMST 4100 is not taken)

12 hours (any 4 of the following—only one 2000 level class may be taken)                          

COAS

Africana Studies

AFAS 3000  African Male

AFAS 3050  African Female

AFAS 3600  African Extended Family

AFAS 3620 African American Family

 English

ENGL 3010  Critical Approaches to Literature

ENGL 3860  Women in Literature

ENGL 4600 African-American Women Writers

 History, Geography, and Political Science

HIST 3100 American Women's History to 1890                        

HIST 3110 American Women's History 1890 to the Present     

HIST 4240 History of Feminism

 Sociology

SOCI 2400  Courtship and Marriage (currently listed in SIS as SOC 340)

SOCI 3101 Sex, Gender, & Social Interaction

SOCI 3200   Anthropology

SOCI 3600  The Family

ANTH 2300  Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

 Women’s Studies

WMST 4100 Special Topics in Women’s Studies

 Agriculture

Early Childhood, Child Development, and Family Relationships

ECFS 4630  Family Relationships

 Education

Psychology

PSY 3310  Principles of Human Sexuality

Want to add your course/new course to our program? Click here for the Administrative Technicalities.

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