Men are welcome in all WGS courses, and as WGS majors and minors. Gender issues are relevant to everyone’s life—everyone has a gender, after all—and discussions of gender issues are best when they draw on a variety of perspectives from both women and men. Many male students have found WGS courses to be eye-opening and life-changing with regard to their career plans, their personal lives, or both.

You need to fill out a major declaration form. Email us at wgs@udayton.edu to receive the form. Your advisor for the WGS major will be the program's director, Dr. Jamie Small. 

If you want to add the WGS Minor, just email the Women’s and Gender Studies office.

Students often describe their WGS coursework as both intellectually and personally transformative. One student says that her WGS minor “really enhanced [her] understanding of [her] major,” while another indicated that “the WGS Program has been one of the most positive experiences of my undergraduate career – I only wish I had found it sooner!”

One recent graduate, now pursuing a master’s degree in social work and non-profit management, was invited to present to her graduate school colleagues on issues of sex and gender, and a local high school has asked her to develop a curriculum for their first-ever women’s studies course. She says, “I am definitely putting my degree to good use and am now the go-to girl in my cohort when it comes to women’s and gender issues. I was unsure when I left UD how my WGS degree would fit into my future. But as I have learned in these past few months, it is becoming an integral part in my career development as a social worker.”

One great option is to begin with our introductory core course, WGS 250 (Introduction to Women’s Studies). In WGS 250 you’ll be exposed to a variety of disciplinary approaches to women’s and gender issues, and you’ll learn about the history and the unique perspective of women’s studies as a field of study.

Students come to WGS through any number of our affiliated departmental courses, from PHL 307 (Philosophy and Women) to HST 354 (History of Women and Gender in the Middle East), SOC 333 (Sociology of Sexualities), and many more.