Overview

What are the career and graduate school options for Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies majors from The College of Wooster?

Graduates of the WGSS program go in many directions after Wooster. Some have attended graduate school in women’s and gender studies, others have pursued graduate degrees in social work, library science, English, sociology, psychology, nurse-midwifery, and divinity. Their careers include working with NGOs for women’s rights, counseling in rape crisis centers, coordinating sex education programs for Planned Parenthood, teaching from pre-school through College. Whatever their chosen field, alums report the profound impact that their major/minor in WGSS has had on their view of the world, affecting everything from becoming politically active to the paid work they engage in to making choices about creating families and raising children.

Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The College of Wooster

The WGSS curriculum is based in feminist scholarship-both within traditional disciplines across the academic divisions and in response to questions that cannot be answered within the framework of a single discipline. To foster this interdisciplinary inquiry, the Women’s Studies Program was established in 1978 and has been built upon the feminist teaching, scholarship, and activism of faculty and students with a wide variety of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives. In the past few decades, the program has grown and evolved, changing its name to the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in 2008 to recognize important changes within feminist scholarship.

Acknowledging this important history, WGSS courses retain Women’s Studies’ focus on examining previously unavailable information about the lives and contributions of women and analyzing the effects of cultural attitudes, power and inequality, and social structures on the experiences of women as they intersect with race, nation, ability, class, religion, and other axes of difference. In addition, feminist scholarship has recognized and explored commonalities between women’s oppression and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other sexual minorities worldwide, as well as the varied experiences of masculinity throughout the globe. In this vein, WGSS courses explore the cultural construction of sex, gender, and sexuality in the context of their relationship between theoretical and experiential knowledge and privileging historically marginalized voices. WGSS encourages scholarship and teaching that is committed to the feminist principle of creating a more just world for all.

Digital History of WGSS at Wooster   Explore the Global Queer Studies Minor at Wooster


Faculty & Staff

Ahmet Atay

Ahmet Atay

Professor of Communication Studies; Program Chair of Global Media & Digital Studies; Liaison to Digital Visual Storytelling Pathway

aatay@wooster.edu

Jordan Biro Walters

Jordan Biro Walters

Associate Professor of History (On leave Fall 2024)

jbirowalters@wooster.edu

Christa Craven head shot

Christa Craven

Professor of Anthropology and Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies, Program Chair of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (On leave Spring 2025)

ccraven@wooster.edu

Melanie Long head shot

Melanie Long

Assistant Professor of Economics & Business Economics; Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies

mlong@wooster.edu

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Santha Schuch

Administrative Coordinator - Africana Studies, Archaeology, East Asian Studies, Middle Eastern & North African Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology and Anthropology, South Asian Studies, Urban Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

sschuch@wooster.edu

Zareen Thomas

Zareen Thomas

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology; Latin American Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (On leave Fall 2024)

zthomas@wooster.edu

Zhenu Tian, assistant professor of communication studies at The College of Wooster

Zhenyu Tian

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

ztian@wooster.edu


Latest Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies News

Along with Henry McMahon ’24 (far right), students from the left Teagan Knutson ’25, Sydney Berenson ’25, also worked on site with Olivia Navarro-Farr (center right), associate professor of archaeology and anthropology at the College and co-director of the Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ (PAW) team at the archaeological site located in the Laguna del Tigre National Park within the Maya Biosphere Reserve in summer 2024. Here, the group from Wooster stands at the front of the trail leading to the Mirador Group, consisting of the two of the largest pyramids at the site.

Archaeology major draws conclusions about Maya political systems based on excavation on site in Guatemala

Archaeology major Henry McMahon spent the summer before his senior year at The College of Wooster in Guatemala surveying an ancient plaza inside El […]

Amelia Menk Brown ’96

Comparative literature graduate uses over 24 years of industry experience to start two small businesses

Amelia Menk Brown ’96, originally from Poland, Ohio, knew she wanted to attend a small, liberal arts college, but the Independent Study program made […]

Emilie Eustace '24

Psychology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major gains lab research experience during summer APEX Fellowship

Emilie Eustace ’24, a psychology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major at The College of Wooster, has seen a notable increase in her […]

Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Christa Craven teaches class outside at The College of Wooster.

Wooster launches global queer studies minor meeting student interest in growing field

Beginning fall 2023, The College of Wooster will offer a minor in global queer studies, part of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program […]

More Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies Articles

Major

A major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies consists of 11 courses spanning Africana Studies, Anthropology, English, History, Communication Studies, Political Science, and World Languages.

View Courses

Minor

Minors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Global Queer Studies (GQST) consist of six courses spanning Africana Studies, Anthropology, English, History, Communication Studies, Political Science, and World Languages.

View Courses

Independent Study

Majors explore their own research questions relating to gender and sexuality. In their Jr. Independent Study seminar, Doing Feminist Research, WGSS majors, minors, and other students who plan to pursue feminist research in their I.S. are introduced to feminist research methods as well as distinctive feminist critical approaches to issues in the social sciences, natural sciences, and the humanities. In their senior year, working under the guidance of a faculty member, students explore their own research for the Independent Study project.

Recent I.S. Projects

  • a study of fat positive feminism in blogs
  • an analysis of novels about eating disorders published in the U.S. and France
  • an investigation of feminist Bible study techniques in South Africa
  • a study of masculinity in the ex-gay movement
  • a cross-cultural feminist analysis of quinceañeras in Nicaragua & the U.S.
  • a study of charged comedy aimed at combatting racism, sexism & homophobia through stand-up comedy
  • a photovoice project with LGBTQ+ students on campus
  • the development of an augmented reality video game to teach students, staff & faculty about the experience of sexual assault survivors
Citational Politics

The College Libraries and various academic areas, including Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Global Queer Studies, collaborate to highlight the importance of feminist politics of citation, being aware and strategic with how we cite, and acknowledging those whose work inspires and influences our own. As part of that effort, we brought Dr. Christen A. Smith to campus to talk about her work with the Cite Black Women movement.

More Information

Search the I.S. Database

Student Year I.S. Title Major 1 Major 2 Advisor
Please search to view results

Related Articles

Along with Henry McMahon ’24 (far right), students from the left Teagan Knutson ’25, Sydney Berenson ’25, also worked on site with Olivia Navarro-Farr (center right), associate professor of archaeology and anthropology at the College and co-director of the Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ (PAW) team at the archaeological site located in the Laguna del Tigre National Park within the Maya Biosphere Reserve in summer 2024. Here, the group from Wooster stands at the front of the trail leading to the Mirador Group, consisting of the two of the largest pyramids at the site.

Archaeology major draws conclusions about Maya political systems based on excavation on site in Guatemala

Archaeology major Henry McMahon spent the summer before his senior year at The College of Wooster in Guatemala surveying an ancient plaza inside El […]

Kate Larson head shot

Breaking Out From Binaries Behind Bars: How Structural Identity Denial Influences Pro/Anti-Social Reactionary Responses and Corresponding Psycho-Social Experiences Inside and Outside the Prison Industrial Complex

Name: Kate Larson Majors: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Psychology Advisors: Zareen Thomas, Amber Garcia, Katie Holt The goal of this research was to complete Critical […]

head shot of Rachel Jones

Body Image Mediating the Relationship between Personality Factors, Emotionality and Extraversion, and Psychological Well-being in a Gender-Diverse and Queer Sample

Name: Rachel Jones Major: Psychology Minor: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Advisors: Amber Garcia Second Reader: Meredith Hope Research has examined the relationship between […]

Hannah Lane-Davies ’21

I.S. research enhances understanding of birth workers in the COVID-19 era

Hannah Lane-Davies ’21 explores the commitments of contemporary birth workers

Alumni

Alumni of the WGSS program go in many directions after Wooster.

Some have attended graduate school in women’s and gender studies, others have pursued graduate degrees in social work, library science, English, sociology, psychology, nurse-midwifery, and divinity.

Their careers include working with NGOs for women’s rights, counseling in rape crisis centers, co-ordinating sex education programs for Planned Parenthood, teaching from pre-school through College, and one alum owns her own hula hoop company to promote positive body image!

Whatever their chosen field, alums report the profound impact that their major/minor in WGSS has had on their view of the world, affecting everything from becoming politically active to the paid work they engage in to making choices about creating families and raising children.


Related Articles

Amelia Menk Brown ’96

Comparative literature graduate uses over 24 years of industry experience to start two small businesses

Amelia Menk Brown ’96, originally from Poland, Ohio, knew she wanted to attend a small, liberal arts college, but the Independent Study program made […]

Mahi Lal '22

Economics alumna analyzes effect of pandemic on student assessment

Mahi Lal ’22, a College of Wooster economics alumna recently contributed to a national press release elaborating on the effect of the pandemic on […]

Gina Christo '14

Women, gender, and sexuality studies alumna manages grassroot political campaigns

Before attending The College of Wooster, Gina Christo ’14 planned on becoming a political science major, but she soon “fell in love with the […]

Faculty Emeriti

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Mary Addis

Professor Emerita, Spanish

maddis@wooster.edu

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Barbara Burnell

Professor Emerita, Economics

bburnell@wooster.edu

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Carolyn Durham

Professor Emerita, French and Francophone Studies

cdurham@wooster.edu

Joanne S. Frye

Professor Emerita, English

jfrye@wooster.edu

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Nancy Grace

Professor Emerita, English

ngrace@wooster.edu

Head shot Linda Hults

Linda Hults

Professor Emerita, Art History

lhults@wooster.edu

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Brenda Meese

Associate Professor Emerita, Physical Education

bmeese@wooster.edu

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Elena Sokol

Professor Emerita, Russian Studies

esokol@wooster.edu

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Karen Taylor

Associate Professor Emerita, History

ktaylor@wooster.edu

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Mark Weaver

Professor Emeritus, Political Science

Josephine Wright

Josephine Wright

Professor Emerita, Africana Studies and Music