2024-2025 Binghamton University Academic Guide
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
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Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is a transdisciplinary program for students who wish to explore gender and its relation to other axes of power such as race, class, ethnicity, nationality, religion and sexuality. WGSS covers a complex variety of theoretical and empirical scholarship, both within traditional disciplines and in transdisciplinary frames in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, as well as combinations of the three. The WGSS program is committed to critical perspectives and bodies of knowledge that contribute to possibilities for transformation and change. Toward this end, WGSS courses emphasize participatory education in which student involvement, critical thinking and personal insight are encouraged and made relevant in the learning process.
Students can pursue a women, gender and sexuality studies major or minor. Majors can pursue honors within the program.
Honors in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
To be eligible to earn honors in the WGSS Program, a student majoring in WGSS must have the following:
- a grade-point average of 3.5 or above in WGSS courses by the beginning of the first semester of their fourth year.
- a 3.0 or above overall GPA by the beginning of the first semester of their fourth year.
In order to complete honors in WGSS, the WGSS major must take a two-semester sequence of WGSS 498 (Honors Thesis Preparation) and WGSS 499 (Honors Thesis). The WGSS major must receive a grade of “A” in WGSS 499.
NOTE: WGSS 498 and 499 will count toward the major as “general topics” courses. Exceptions to this can be made at the discretion of the WGSS director/WGSS undergraduate director. WGSS majors interested in pursuing WGSS honors should declare their intent to the WGSS director and the WGSS undergraduate advisor by the end of the second semester of their junior year in order to allow for adequate planning of the independent research project.
- Majors interested in honors should approach a potential advisor by the second semester of their junior year. All WGSS-affiliated faculty are eligible, if willing, to serve as honors advisors. The honors advisor should be available for the two semester WGSS 498/499 sequence.
- Once an agreement between the WGSS major and the advisor has been made, the student should inform the WGSS director and the WGSS undergraduate advisor of who the honors advisor will be, and the director and/or the undergraduate advisor should confirm this agreement with the honors advisor.
- The student should work to complete the honors project during the last semester of their senior year in time for a second reader to read the completed paper (or review the completed project) and approve it for honors. Honors students should note that papers/ projects need to be finished before the last month or so of the semester, to leave time for revision and for informing Harpur of their honors status. As noted above, the student must receive a grade of “A” for the 499 semester course.
Programs
Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
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