WGS information for faculty

This page is for Detroit Mercy faculty and administrators, and includes criteria for developing courses in Women's and Gender Studies (WGS). Students should refer to the WGS main page.

The WGS Program is essential to the mission of University of Detroit Mercy, extending the mandate for respect of persons to those traditionally marginalized in society and in the academic pursuit of knowledge. Academic excellence is achieved only when all voices contribute to each discipline.

Faculty may be interested in:

• WGS grant opportunities
• List of faculty affiliated with WGS
• Contacting WGS

WGS-affiliated disciplines

For a list of affiliated faculty, see the main WGS page.

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program critically examines the place of women and gender in culture and society. Feminist theory is applied to traditional disciplines to analyze the origins and effects of power, dominance, and gender. Since women's and gender issues encompass and modify all areas of knowledge, and since such issues as race, class, and sexuality are crucial aspects of such experiences, the program is necessarily interdisciplinary, intersectional, and multi-cultural. 

Below are the program requirements for WGS courses.

A. Content requirements

Course content must clearly reflect and acquaint students with recent scholarship on feminist theory and women, gender, and/or sexuality. At least 50% of course materials and assignments should be about women, gender, and/or sexuality. If, for historical or disciplinary reasons, the subject of the course precludes this, then the materials used should consistently be put into a dialogue with feminist perspectives and additional feminist resources. 

As part of the WGS Program’s curriculum, a WGS course should also promote one or more of the Program’s outcomes, advancing students’ abilities to: 

1. Demonstrate knowledge of the major concepts and issues of the discipline of Women’s and Gender Studies; 
2. Analyze structures of power, dominance, subordination, and gender roles and relations; 
3. Recognize the ways in which gender intersects with race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nation, and/or other identity categories; 
4. Use this knowledge to reflect critically and thoughtfully upon their own academic, personal, and professional lives, as well as their communities.  

B. Methodology requirements

Each Women's and Gender Studies course should have clear intellectual goals that integrate both the content and issues of the instructor's specific discipline and the overarching concerns of Women's and Gender Studies. For example, a history course entitled "Women in Modern Europe" class might have the primary goals of:

1. enabling students to use gender as a category of analysis in the study of modern European history, and
2. providing students with an understanding of women's roles in and contributions to the social, political, and cultural developments in Europe from the period of the Enlightenment to the present.

In addition, WGS courses should critically examine the gender assumptions in the traditional methodologies, theories, and research of particular disciplines and/or explore the production of knowledge in the arts and sciences as it reflects, challenges, or creates cultural assumptions about gender.  

C. Pedagogical requirements

Women’s and Gender Studies courses should be taught in a way that fosters the empowerment of all students and that equips students to identify and critically analyze gender relations and systems of domination so they can develop their own informed positions on issues raised in the class.