Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, B.A.

Founded in 1972, UNC Greensboro’s program in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies is one of the oldest in the nation. The program offers an interdisciplinary liberal arts education that critically engages students in considering the complexities of gender and sexual identity and women’s lives historically and in the contemporary moment. Coursework further helps students understand how gender intersects with other important social identities, like nationality, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and ability.

PROGRAM DISTINCTIONS

• Faculty awards include the John Hope Franklin Best Book in American Studies, the American Educational Association’s Choice Best Book Award, the Conference on College Composition Association’s Outstanding Book Award, the Southeastern Medieval Association’s Best First Book Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Humanities Center.
• Faculty author and contribute to books on topics including U.S. feminisms and transnational feminisms, the relationship between human rights discourse and visual representation, eroticism in medieval Christianity, trans performance and critical ecology, the role of gathering in African American art, social movements, and Latin American women’s activism, and gender and European musical modernism.

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

• A double major in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies and a disciplinary area of study is easy to accomplish and carries numerous advantages for students with interests in particular departmental majors and gender issues. 
• Students are assigned an adviser and mentor who help them develop a career plan which includes course work, along with optional community work, and internship or independent study. When students finish a WGSS major, they finish with a strong resume and with faculty who know them well enough to write a recommendation fully describing their strengths.
• Internships are offered at such places as Planned Parenthood, Bayard Rustin Center for LGBTQA Activism, Awareness and Reconciliation at Guilford College, UNCG Office of Intercultural Engagement, Women’s Workforce WEB, NARAL NC, and the Interactive Resource Center.
• Annual scholarships and special project awards are available for eligible students.
• This program is mindful of UNCG’s historical identity as the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina and works to maintain and revisit that history as it carries on the tradition of fostering social awareness and intellectual and personal development.

AFTER GRADUATION

• The degree prepares students for careers in politics and law, social work, psychology, human relations, sports and recreation, sociology, administration, the arts, business, education, health sciences, media, and more.
• Graduates have pursued advanced degrees at such institutions as University of Maryland, New York University, University of Southern California, Boston University School of Law, Emory University, University of Texas at Austin, and UNCG’s Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies program.

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