Thursday, November 18, 2010
Beginning next fall, the University of Kansas will offer a doctoral program for the department of women, gender and sexuality studies.
The Kansas Board of Regents approved the program at its Thursday meeting, according to Regents spokesman Kip Peterson.
John Younger, director of WGSS and professor of classics, said he saw the program’s establishment as both legitimizing the discipline and contributing to its definition.
“And even so, it’s still evolving,” Younger said.
Requirements/Deadlines
13 credit hours of WGSS courses
15 credit hours of WGSS electives
18 credit hours in a concentration
Deadlines for admission
For fall 2011: Feb. 1, 2011
For spring 2012: Dec. 15, 2011
Growing need
Only 17 other universities nationwide offer a Ph.D. program in women’s studies, with the closest being Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas. Younger said the field was still fairly new.
The University has one of the oldest programs in the field, but the major was not official until 1974 and the program until the early 1990s. When Younger became director in 2008, the department changed its name from women’s studies to women, gender and sexuality studies.
The application deadline for applying for fall 2011 admission is Feb. 1, 2011. For admission in 2012, the deadline is Dec. 15, 2011. Ph.D. candidates will be required to complete at least 13 credit hours of core WGSS courses, 15 credit hours of elective WGSS courses and at least 18 credit hours in a concentration.
After completing the classes, Younger said candidates would take a qualifying oral exam to determine whether they received a master’s and left the program or continued on toward a Ph.D.
He said PhD candidates would later present another oral presentation on what they wanted to do for their dissertation. The idea, he said, is that they make certain they’re aware of their stance in the history of the field and what change or development they will contribute.
“I rather like this concept,” Younger said. “Placing yourself as a scholar within a continuum is really good. You know where you are in this program.”
The University submitted a proposal for the program to the regents in 2009. An external review team of women’s studies professors from outside universities also met with students, faculty and staff last May and recommended approving the proposal.
The University has said the program would not require additional costs and would be financed within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Importance of interdiscipline
In its proposal, the University said the doctoral program was a response to growing national demand for interdisciplinary scholars. The external review team came to a similar conclusion.
“Women’s studies is one of the most swiftly growing fields of inquiry to emerge in the past 40 years, generating one of the most significant and influential shifts in academic thought in recent memory,” the review team said in its report.
Associate professor Hannah Britton occasionally works in Africa researching women in government and women organizations that fight gender-based violence. Her courses often blend WGSS and political science, an interdisciplinary approach she said was a strength at the University.
DaMaris Hill is a doctoral student from Baltimore. Her dissertation, a novel titled “Willows of the Spring,” uses literature to examine the cases of women who were discriminated against and imprisoned during the Great Depression.
Hill expects to graduate in Aug. 2011 with a Ph.D. in English and creative writing with a WGSS certificate. She said without the WGSS program, she wouldn’t have been exposed to professors with approaches like that of Britton.
Hill said the program was also important because it allowed for opportunities to talk about how genders interacted.
“That’s what it’s really going to come down to,” she said. “How will they work together?”
— Edited by Dana Meredith
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