WAGS Mission
Our mission is to support teaching, interdisciplinary learning, and researching the expanding, multi-faceted fields of Women's and Gender Studies. To support teaching and learning in the field, we offer a major and minor in Women's and Gender Studies, core courses at the introductory and upper level of the central discipline, and a variety of lecture courses and seminars drawn from different disciplines in the College.
In support of research in Women's and Gender Studies, we organize a lecture and performance series in the field, the Women's Culture Series, and encourage research by our own faculty through informal presentations of work in progress and feminist and gender theory discussion groups. We encourage student research in Women's and Gender Studies through thesis and essay direction, public defenses, presentation of papers at professional meetings, and performance of original work in theatre and art. Each spring we announce prizes for student research in the field, for theses and term papers, drawn from across the curriculum.
We maintain a presence in Chellis House, Middlebury's Women's Center, and support vigorous debate and practice of Women's and Gender Studies by students, faculty and staff throughout the College. Chellis House was dedicated in November, 1993. The building houses a small seminar room, used for classes and meetings of the Women's and Gender Studies Coordinating Committee and the student-directed coalition for Feminist Consciousness. Also in Chellis House are the Alison Fraker Women's Studies Library (furnished by the Fraker family in memory of a former student active in the program), faculty and administrative offices. The program also supports a group of student monitors engaged in research and activist projects involving the College community, alumni, and the greater Middlebury community.
We will continue to deepen and broaden our curriculum through regular core courses at all levels of instruction, and through appointments that would solidify the administration, research, and student support that the field demands.
