Women's Studies

Cross-Listed and Recommendation Listing

An Invitation From Women's Studies

Christy Burns, Director
(757) 221-2453
clburn@wm.edu

Ann Repeta, Administrative Assistant
(757) 221-2457
darepe@wm.edu

Offering Cross-Listed, Recommended and Core Women's Studies Courses:

Women's Studies offers its students three types of courses, enabling them to design majors specific to their own interdisciplinary interests. We offer core curriculum courses within the program; cross-listed courses, which deal extensively with issues relevant to women, gender, and/or feminist theory, and may also reflect a feminist pedagogy in the instructor's approach; and also recommended courses, which treat Women's Studies issues for approximately one-third of the course.

Women's Studies Criteria for Cross-listed and Recommended Courses:

Courses in all disciplines will be considered for recommendation to Women's Studies concentrators and minors, and may have a broad or a very specific focus.

A significant portion of the content of recommended courses should address (through readings and discussion) gender and/or women within the context of the disciplinary or topical focus of the course itself.

Courses cross-listed with Women's Studies should contribute to the overall Women's Studies education of our concentrators. Generally such courses incorporate feminist theoretical paradigms, approaches, and/or methodologies; and seek to move beyond and/or transform mono-disciplinary perspectives.

Although pedagogical style is not a criterion for cross-listing, courses cross-listed with Women's Studies generally aim to encourage student participation.

Note: Faculty members teaching courses cross-listed with Women's Studies should be aware that students enrolling in these courses will come to them with expecting the courses to fulfill the program's aims:


Women's Studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to acquaint students with current scholarship on women and gender, to introduce them to feminist theory and research, and to provide opportunities and support for students to engage in feminist activism. The Women's Studies curriculum offers students the opportunity to critically examine cultural assumptions about gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in light of information made available by new theories and research. The Women's Studies concentration prepares students who wish to gain a strong interdisciplinary perspective in advance of employment and/or graduate or professional training.

Procedures:

To have a new course considered for cross-listing or recommendation, send a copy of the syllabus to Christy Burns, Director of the Women's Studies Program, Morton Hall 322, and indicate whether you are seeking to have it cross-listed or recommended. We generally need to know which courses will be recommended a month prior to registration, and those to be cross-listed should be sent to us well in advance of registration, while the course schedule is being assembled.

The Women's Studies Curriculum Committee approves all new courses for cross-listing. Once the course has been accepted, the Committee Chair contacts the relevant department chair to ensure that the department is aware of and amenable to the proposed cross-listing. At this time a cross-listing agreement form will be sent to both the department chair and the director of Women's Studies for signature. Once signed, the agreement form will be sent to Registration, with copies for file to both the relevant department and the Women's Studies program.

If you plan to teach a course that has been approved as cross-listed or recommended in a previous year, please e-mail Christy Burns at clburn@wm.edu and let her know the course name, number, meeting time and, when you know it, location.

If you would like to teach directly in the program's core courses, contact Christy Burns and, if you can, attend our annual planning meeting. Women's Studies periodically reviews and revises its core curriculum, and new courses are added to the program after being carefully considered in their link to existing core requirements.