Women's, Gender, & Sexualities Studies Programs: Surviving the 21st-Century University

How can Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies survive and flourish in universities beset by economic worries and dominated – as is increasingly the 21^st-century reality – by the vision of administrators not always sympathetic to our inter-discipline?

For ten years I have directed the Women’s and Gender Studies program at a small liberal arts college housed within (and expected to serve) a university dominated by a business school and a law school.

Our WGSS reality: university-wide student enrollments have dropped precipitously since 2008. Minor programs and even departments have been eliminated, and budgets are cut every year. WGSS is protected – somewhat – by its popularity among students. But full classrooms and many students eager to minor in WGSS are not enough in the current climate. Administrators are often uncomfortable with faculty research and teaching in an inter-discipline that includes sexuality and queerness among its foci. In addition, the economies of scale with which administrators increasingly try to solve the university’s problems include replacing faculty directors of interdisciplinary programs with administrative heads, who may have limited understanding or interest in the intellectual and activist underpinnings of WGSS. These more “efficient” structures follow a business model that may indeed cut costs – but they often lead to the decline of WGSS programs.

How can program directors and department chairs preserve their vibrant student/faculty WGSS communities? How can they reach out to administrators and communicate the benefits of a passionate and engaged, faculty-led Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies program?