Women’s and Ethnic Studies Minor

Courses offered through the Women’s and Ethnic Studies Program (WEST)  center on the experiences and cultural expressions of women and racial/ethnic groups not only in the United States but also across the world, including but not limited to economic, political, legal, historical, literary and cultural dimensions of life both inside and outside of the United States.

An important goal of the minor is to focus on knowledge grounded in the experiences and perspectives of women and racial/ethnic groups that have been marginalized and excluded from full participation in society.

Women’s and Ethnic Studies provides all students with tools to accomplish the following goals:

•  to introduce students to an interdisciplinary perspective, and thereby make visible a range of approaches, including those which are non-traditional or marginalized;
•  the ability to adopt an intersectional approach to the study of privilege and oppression, which emphasizes the interrelations among race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality;
•  the capacity to effectively work with people from various sexual orientations, classes, genders, and racial/ethnic backgrounds, and
•  the knowledge to shape our collective future in ways that foster a recognition of the practical and fortuitous advantages of diversity in community life.

Women’s and Ethnic Studies also provides students with a forum for exploring the realities of their own experiences and discussing those realities in a systematic, informed way.