Trinity University is now ranked nationally as the No. 40 best liberal arts college according to U.S. News & World Report, and it is an absolute marvel and a disservice to current and prospective students that there is no gender studies department or major. According to Niche, Trinity ranks as the No. 1 best small liberal arts college in Texas, with Southwestern as No. 2 and Austin College as No. 3. Trinity is an outlier on this list, not only because it’s ranked much higher nationally than the others, but also because it doesn’t have a gender studies department. While rendered invisible in certain disciplines and spaces, gender as a lens of analysis is critical in understanding the world around us.
Gender is present in every single course taught here, and even though gender studies courses are taught in twelve different disciplines, it doesn’t have its own space. Creating a gender studies department and a corresponding major would spur the university to hire professors whose sole job would be to teach gender, instead of the current system where professors from several disciplines teach gender courses on top of their own departmental requirements. The lack of a gender studies department makes the university look hypocritical and ‘old-school,’ while allowing it to underpay staff who contribute to courses and curricula for the minor.
Gender studies is present on campus, but it is crammed into courses inside other disciplines to form a minor and is referred to as the Women and Gender Studies Program — not as a department. Professors who teach WAGS courses are not compensated for essentially working in two different departments. Hosting events outside of courses such as the Women’s History Month series is left to the professors who contribute to the program on top of their current jobs.
Creating a department would come with a much-needed funding boost that could be used to create more courses, events and spaces. Sarah Luginbill, visiting assistant professor in history and the humanities, documents how trinity students have been hungry for a gender studies major on campus since the 1980s; WAGS courses are waitlisted and extracurricular events are well-attended. Without a department and proper resources, it is difficult to offer many courses and foster a strong sense of community engagement. Even existing spaces that provide a sense of community like the Women’s Resource Center, which houses over 200 books on gender and sexuality in Elizabeth Huth Coates Library, are not widely known to students.
The upside of a WAGS major is that it keeps the same highly interdisciplinary and diverse array of courses that the minor has. Other departments utilize this strategy to cross-list classes, from anthropology to sociology. Creating a WAGS major would come at a critical time for change as the university feels the pressure from the Trump administration to clamp down on diversity, equity and inclusion. With Amy Stone’s, professor of sociology and anthropology, research directly named by Ted Cruz’s office crackdown on NSF grants, the university needs to decide whether to put its students and faculty first or protect its image.
A gender studies major is essential at any higher education institution, especially a liberal arts college with a student body who has been pushing for one for 40 years. The WAGS program is underfunded, understaffed and not on par with similar institutions. Trinity can either make the changes that reflect the student body it prides itself on or continue to use the current WAGS minor as a safety valve for real change and meaningful inclusion.
