Academics

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Academics

The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma produces research and engages in teaching that examines the meaning and impact of gender and sexuality across all aspects of society including politics, economics, religion, medicine, public health and family life. We are the only institution of higher education in the state to offer both an undergraduate major and a graduate certificate in the discipline.

In addition to the major in WGS, we offer minors in WGS, Social Justice, and LGBTQ Studies. Through coursework, service learning and internships our students learn critical thinking, writing, public speaking, organization, conflict resolution, and project design. The interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives students gain in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies enable them to achieve their highest potential in their chosen field and as citizens of a diverse local and global communities.

Through coursework, service learning and internships our students learn critical thinking, writing, public speaking, organization, conflict resolution, and project design. The transdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives students gain in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies enable them to achieve their highest potential in their chosen field and as citizens of diverse local and global communities. Women's and Gender Studies majors and minors have found work in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, social help agencies, human rights advocacy, and victim's advocacy. Others have pursued graduate study in law, medicine, human relations, education, business, information science, communications, fine arts, and public health.

Student Outcomes

Our Student Learning Outcomes for the undergraduate WGS major emphasize the highly impactful skillsets that students cultivate that can be applied in and beyond the classroom. They are:

Academic Skills

Analyze various texts and contexts through the application of feminist and queer theoretical frameworks.
Understand and critically engage with the intersectionality of categories of social difference (such as gender, sexuality, race, class, language, ethnicity, nation, empire, and [dis]ability), which are always shifting and shaped by structures of power and oppression.
Identify the potential of transdisciplinary collaborations and the tendencies of traditional academic disciplines to reproduce patterns of inequity.
Create original research, identify salient research questions, critically evaluate primary and secondary sources, while demonstrating knowledge of and rationale for feminist, queer, and decolonial research methods.
Demonstrate feminist praxis, or the link between theory and practice, for achieving social justice and social change.

Applied Skills

Recognize and advocate for social change at the local, national and/or transnational level.
Generate written, oral, and/or creative modes of communication to convey complex ideas from the field of women and gender studies to academic and general audiences.
Collaborate through civil discourse to create strategies to address real world problems and implement strategies for the public good.
Develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills
Demonstrate media and information literacy.
Apply skillsets developed in WGS to life outside and beyond the university, including but not limited to professional pathways.