Dear Gender and Women’s Studies Community,
At our recent commencement event, I chatted with our graduating students about their experiences in our department. They praised individual instructors and the department for providing life-changing instruction and encouraging personal and intellectual exploration. They beamed as they recounted illuminating moments and empowering achievements, and they were eager to bring their hard-earned knowledge into the next phase of their lives. At the end of a tumultuous year, our students’ joy offered a welcome balm.
For the last fifty years, the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies (once known as the Women’s Studies Program) has supported the study of gender and sexuality in all their diversity, with the aim of increasing our understanding and securing a more just and equitable world. Our mission has always been contentious and vital. We have rejected the status quo; we have made trouble to secure the greater good.
Our current graduates continue a long legacy of students and alumni who have made good trouble, spoke truth to power, insisted Black Lives Matter, and affirmed Trans Rights are Human Rights. The passion, determination, and creativity of our students will meet the challenges of our current political moment. It may be a long game, but I’m betting on our current students, recent graduates, and our alumni to prevail.
Forward, because we won’t go back!
Judith Houck, Department Chair
Gender and Women’s Studies