Since 1989, Trinity has offered women’s and gender studies (WAGS) as a minor, and 37 years later, it is on its way to becoming a major. Though the major still requires approval from the Board of Trustees, the Faculty Assembly approved a proposal on April 17 to offer a major in women’s, gender and sexuality studies (WGSS) starting next year.
This development was a long time coming, according to Sarah Erickson, associate professor of communication and co-director of WAGS. She and her co-director, Gina Anne Tam, associate professor of history, began drafting a proposal more than three years ago.
“We’ve been running as a minor, what we call a ‘minor plus’ for a really long time,” Erickson said. “We’ve already been kind of operating on this bigger scale, and we’re trying to sort of match our name and what we actually are with what we’re doing.”
The major will be interdisciplinary and not form a new department, Erickson said. It will mostly draw from classes that already exist in other departments, such as art, history, English, philosophy and sociology. The major will require students to take two classes tagged as WGSS at the beginning of their track, which are strictly part of the major, according to Erickson. Students will then finish the major with a senior capstone seminar, completing 31 credit hours in total.
Erickson said that while she and Tam are relieved that the Faculty Assembly approved it as a major, it comes at a time when similar programs are increasingly in peril at institutions around the country.
“I think doing it right now allows Trinity to position ourselves as unique in Texas as a private liberal arts institution,” Erickson said. “It means a degree of visibility for people talking about gender and sexuality and women that we didn’t have before, and that I think is increasingly central to the conversations we’re having as a nation and world.”
While the Board of Trustees still needs to approve the faculty’s proposition, Erickson said that it is rare for the board to disagree with unanimous faculty recommendations, and she and Tam are hopeful that Trinity will offer WGSS as a major next year.
