The Department of Women and Gender Studies (WGST) aims to foster students’ critical thinking skills in a learning environment that is supportive and challenging. Housed in the historic Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage, our faculty encourage students to critically engage with course materials and with the world around them, and provide them tools to do so. We believe such skills will enhance the equality, dignity, and empowerment that we value. WGST also has the support of numerous associate faculty from many other units on campus, providing students with an intersectional and interdisciplinary array of courses to choose from.

Prospective Students

Undergraduates can earn a bachelor of arts in women and gender studies, a minor in women and gender studies, and certificates in Global Gender and Sexuality Studies and LGBTQ Studies.

Information for students new to CU, or how to declare a major or minor in WGST can be found on our Prospective Students page.

Undergraduate Students

"WGST has taught me how to think critically about the world around me, to question things that often go unnoticed, to critically evaluate things about our culture through a lens that takes not just gender into account, but all other identities as well."
-R. Blanchard

Graduate Students

The Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies is designed to complement a CU graduate disciplinary degree program—providing graduate students with a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary education in gender and sexuality studies, providing a thorough grounding in feminist and/or queer theory and feminist methodology, and opportunities to explore diverse special topics in gender and sexuality studies.

The certificate is designed to help graduate students from a wide range of different CU departments and programs navigate the conceptual gap between discipline-specific studies and interdisciplinary work in gender and sexuality studies.

On a practical level, the certificate has proven especially useful to graduate students seeking to demonstrate their expertise in gender and sexuality studies to prospective employers in academia, government and the private sector.

Apply now!

WGST

More about Careers in Women and Gender Studies:

Visit our Career Services page

Visit CU’s Career Services