Mission and Commitment

The Department of Gender and Women's Studies aims to serve the university and the Commonwealth through promotion of equity and commitment to excellence. 

We are committed to research and teaching about the lives, cultures, perspectives, and activities of women globally.  We believe that what are commonly referred to as "women's issues" are societal issues that affect all individuals, regardless of gender. 

While understanding women’s experiences, resources, strategies and contributions to society is central to the GWS mission, equally important is the exploration of gender as a construct that permeates human experience, thought, and history. We recognize that men’s lives are gendered and that gender relations occur simultaneously with other hierarchical social relations and inequalities of power including those based on ability, age, class, ethnicity, family composition, race, region, religion, sex, sexual orientation and the inequitable distribution of resources in and among countries and groups globally.

In the service of this mission, we are committed to the development of a multi-disciplinary, integrative, theoretically diverse curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels; support of critical research, teaching and public programming in Gender and Women's Studies; and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among both faculty and students.

The Department

The Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at UK (formerly the Women’s Studies program) was initiated in 1989. Since that time, more than 200 undergraduate students have enrolled in the GWS minor program, with 21 undergraduate students completing topical majors in GWS.

In 1994, GWS began offering the Graduate Certificate Program and since its inception 199 Graduate Certificates in GWS have been awarded.

The GWS program reached department status in June 2009. Since becoming a department, 17 undergraduate students have graduated with a primary major in GWS and 8 students have graduated with GWS as a secondary major.

In Fall of 2013, GWS began its PhD program. The program continues to grow and we currently have 15 graduate students enrolled in the PhD program.

With our continued growth, we are clearly moving into a new phase. In the future, we will look back on this historical period in the evolution of Gender and Women’s Studies at UK as one of programmatic growth and scholarly innovation.
 

Community Outreach

GWS is an active member of the UK and greater Lexington communities through sponsorship and co-sponsorship of numerous events and activities. Over the years, faculty, staff and students in Gender and Women’s Studies have been pleased to participate in community events, e.g., with the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, Take Back the Night, the One World Film Festival, and the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice. Over the years, GWS has also participated in outreach projects with UK’s Center for Research on Violence Against Women and the Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) Center.

GWS has also made available an intership catalogue that includes internships, as well as, leadership tranings, seminars, and conferences that you may be interested in.  You can access the catalogue here.