Dr. Traci Ardren
Director

The Program in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Miami seeks to encourage the rigorous investigation of gender as a significant issue in all areas of human experience. It reaches across disciplines to draw on a range of methods, theories, and perspectives that help us to understand how ideas and structures based on gender shape our lives. The program's core objective is to foster the examination, open discussion, and lively debate of gender issues among faculty and students from all fields of study, enriching the undergraduate curriculum and the university's academic mission through greater communication across disciplines and colleges. Its aim is to broaden, deepen, and transform the learning community at UM and beyond.

The undergraduate curriculum in Women's and Gender Studies explores the ways in which ideas about gender and sexuality shape social roles and identities, as well as the ways in which race, ethnicity, class, and nationhood influence the perception and experience of gender and sexuality within particular cultures. The curriculum is informed by recent scholarship that recognizes gender and sexuality as crucial components of human experience in social, cultural, economic, political, religious, and legal contexts. It includes courses that introduce students to feminist theory and scholarship, engaging ethical and political issues of equality and justice. The program encourages students to question their assumptions about the possible meanings of female and male through the comparative study of how different societies and historical periods have viewed manhood, womanhood, and relations between women and men. Courses in Women's and Gender Studies enable students to acquire critical and analytical skills that they can then apply in other aspects of their educational experience at UM and beyond the university in their careers and personal development.

We welcome all students with an intellectual curiosity about the ordering of society and their relationship to it. Students can become involved in Women's and Gender Studies at UM in a number of ways:

1. By attending events organized by the program, including a speaker series that brings outside experts to speak on a wide range of issues, as well as readings, films, performances, and forums
   
   
2. By taking individual courses, some of which are core courses introducing students to basic issues and analytical approaches in Women's and Gender Studies, others of which are co-listed with other departments and focus on gender issues in a specific disciplinary context (such as law, anthropology, literature, or history)
   
   
3. By completely a minor in Women's and Gender Studies to enrich and complement a major by gaining a broad interdisciplinary perspective on gender issues
   
   
4. Or by completing a major in Women's and Gender Studies that provides an invaluable foundation for careers in business, government, law, social work, healthcare, administration, political advocacy, journalism, academic scholarship, and the performing arts