Women and Gender Studies - Women and Gender Studies

Welcome to the Women and Gender Studies Program

About Us

Queens College offers an interdisciplinary major and minor in Women and Gender Studies. The Curriculum is designed to provide students with a solid foundation in the issues and methodologies appropriate for the study of women and gender. Students will examine women’s experiences in historical and cultural perspective and explore the ways in which gender intersects with class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, and nation. The program offers a wide range of courses taught by more than 30 faculty members across the disciplines. The Major consists of 36 credits: core requirements (12 credits), distribution requirements (a minimum of 9 credits), and elective requirements (at least 15 credits). The Minor consists of the core and distribution requirements (21 credits).

Women and Gender Studies sponsors an annual conference in March for Women’s History Month, focusing on topics of national and international significance, and also hosts monthly luncheon colloquia, where students and faculty gather for informal talks by Queens College professors or visiting speakers.

The WGS program offers an annual scholarship to majors in Women and Gender Studies, and each May the Virginia Frese Palmer award is presented to the graduating major with the most distinguished record. Majors and minors in the program write an independent research paper on a topic of particular interest to them, a requirement that encourages serious scholarship. Students also participate in internships in various women-and-gender-oriented organizations, earning course credit while gaining hands-on experience in such fields as health care, law, communications, social services, and politics.

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
-Toni Morrison