History of the Women and Gender Studies Program

Since 1974, the Women and Gender Studies Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder has offered an interdisciplinary curriculum encompassing the social sciences and the humanities. Courses reflect the new scholarship on women: they focus on the interface of the public and private spheres of women's lives; on the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nation and class; and on feminist studies of gender identity and theories of inequality. The curriculum is multifaceted, offering courses on U.S. women of color, women and development as well as global feminism. The program houses a reading library in the Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage and sponsors colloquia, workshops, and other cultural and educational events.

What career opportunities are available by majoring in Women's Studies?

Employers hire people who can problem solve, write, research and think. Many of our graduates have pursued careers in law, medicine, public health, public policy, social work, teaching, counselling, advocacy, journalism, television production, union/labor organizing, public relations, academia, politics, fundraising for non-profits, small business developer, librarianship, arts administration, and in Foreign Service.

What knowledge will I gain with an undergraduate degree from the Women and Gender Studies Program?

• the historical and cross-cultural variability of social norms of masculinity and femininity;
• the ways in which ideas of masculinity and femininity shape and interact with other axes of domination, such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability and nation;
• the centrality of gender at the local, national and international levels of society, politics and the economy;
• the diversity of global feminism;
• how women interact with the global economy;
• how power and privilege function in relation to the intersection of gender, race, class, sexuality and nation;
• women's participation in, contribution to, and transformation of areas of social life including culture, society, politics, economy and religion;
• institutionalized discrimination and violence against women;
• women's activism and resistance to oppression;
• the varied research methods and theoretical perspectives used in women, gender and sexuality studies scholarship, including the relationship between theory and practice; and
• the history of women and gender studies as an academic discipline and the main themes that have characterized its emergence.

What practical skills will I learn?

Students completing their degree with the Women and Gender Studies program are expected to acquire the ability and skills to:

• express ideas clearly in spoken form;
• employ creative problem solving techniques;
• organize and synthesize material in new ways
• analyze texts and information critically;
• articulate clearly complex ideas in written form; and
• participate in teamwork successfully.

History of the Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage

Until 1884, the entire University of Colorado (CU) was located in Old Main. That year four new buildings were added to the CU-Boulder campus, including Cottage #1 and #2. Cottage #2 housed the men, while "Ladies' Cottage" (#1) housed the women students and their house mother at the University.
In the late 1920s Cottage #2 was demolished to make room for a student union, but Cottage #1 still remains. This building, with its Victorian detailing, is one of the most historically significant structures on the CU-Boulder campus today. It is a symbol of the historical presence of women from its earliest days.

In the days when the Cottage was a dormitory, the first floor contained a large kitchen, a couple of parlors, and a large dining room, which could seat 100 people. On the second floor were 12 bedrooms and a bath. The bedrooms were unfurnished so the women students had to supply their beds, tables and other room furnishings, as well as their linens. Cottage #1 had a coal stove and fireplaces of the first floor, but there was no means of heating the bedrooms upstairs.

As sororities began to appear on campus around the turn of the twentieth century, and there were housing alternatives for women, the Cottage gradually changed from a dormitory into the women's center and eventually came to be called the Women's Building. It was the focus of all women's activities on campus and the community. The Boulder YWCA was founded there and later the Cottage became the office of the Dean of Women and home to CU's former Department of Home Economics. 

For many years the Cottage was on the demolition list, but in 1996-97, the Cottage received a $1 million dollar renovation gift through funds from the Colorado Historical Fund and the generosity of the family of the late Hazel Gates Woodruff.

Today, Cottage #1, now known as the Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage houses the Women and Gender Studies Program.