Women's & Gender Studies, Graduate Certificate

For further information:WomensStudiesGrad@southernct.edu

Application Deadline

Rolling Admissions

Compatible with many different areas of study in the professions and the liberal arts, Women's & Gender Studies allows students to explore the nature of women's status, circumstances, and objectives across the boundaries of academic disciplines, cultures, and historical periods. Women's & Gender Studies courses offer students the opportunity to integrate scholarly inquiry, critical problem solving methods, professional training, cooperative leadership skills, and practical strategies for intervention in real life situations.

The interdisciplinary graduate certificate in Women's & Gender Studies is available to those who have completed a bachelor's degree as well as those matriculated in graduate programs offered by departments which support the Women's & Gender Studies certificate: Art, Curriculum & Learning, English, Environmental Education, History, Nursing, Psychology, Social Work, Special Education, Sociology, and World Languages and Literatures. 

The requirements for the certificate are at least one core course and two or three electives; two core courses and one or two electives are strongly encouraged. No student should take more than two courses for the Women's & Gender Studies Graduate Certificate in a single department and students matriculated for a degree are encouraged to take other women's studies courses outside their own department. The elective courses are selected in consultation with the Women's & Gender Studies graduate coordinator and with the student's departmental adviser.

All courses toward the certificate are taken at graduate level unless special permission is obtained from the Women's & Gender Studies graduate coordinator and from the departmental adviser.

Extra Course Information

In addition to the regularly offered Women's & Gender Studies courses, a range of special top- ics courses are offered. Some courses offered in the past have included: Evolution of Black Feminist Thought; Gender, Race, Class in Young Adult Literature; Take Back the Kitchen; Feminist Utopias; Psychoanalysis and Feminism; Ecofeminist Writing; History of U.S. Women Photographers; Women and the Law; Feminist Families/Women's Choices; Writer 's Workshop: The Gendered Voice; Gender and Culture; Women and Professional Ethics; Women, Affirmative Action and the Law; Women in the Professions; Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice; Ethnic Identity: Women's Voices; British Reform Movements; A Room With a View; Anglophone Women Writers; Women Writers of the British Isles; Women's Autobiographical Writing, Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury; Women's Autobiographies Through the Arts; Feminist Interpretations of the Gospels.

Program Sequence
9-12 credits

As sequencing changes, it is highly recommended that students meet with their program advisor to finalize a list of requirements for graduation.   

One required core course (3-credits in one of the following)
WMS 500 - Feminist Theories and Practices - 3 Credits
WMS 510 - Research Methods -3 Credits
WMS 520 - History of Feminist Thought - 3 Credits
WMS 530 - Global Women’s Issues - 3 Credits
Option 1: Graduate Certificate (6 cr. + 3cr Core Course=9cr)
Electives by advisement, must be graduate level – 6 Credits
Option 2: Graduate Certificate (9cr. + 3cr Core Course= 12cr)
Electives by advisement, must be graduate level – 9 Credits

This program is not eligible for financial aid (Title IV and/or State funds).