About
The Gender and Sexuality Studies program at Saint Michael’s College focuses on questions of gender and difference, the body and sexuality. As students investigate power relations, social inequalities, and modes of resistance, they consider how normative and non-normative constructions of gender and sexuality shape the production of knowledge in given fields at particular moments and locales.
In Depth
Our courses also examine the ways in which naturalized gender norms influence everyday practices and manifest in the words we use, the clothing we wear, the popular culture we create or consume, the family structures we inhabit, and the laws and public policies we obey or defy. Our program pays particular attention to how gender and sexuality intersect with race, class, ethnicity, national belonging, and transnational movement(s).
Special Opportunities
We encourage our student to be actively involved in contemporary gender issues and many of our students chose to do this through service learning opportunities. Some of our students intern and volunteer at places like Women Helping Battered Women, the Lund Family Center, and Women’s Rape Crisis Center in Burlington.
Another way to get involved is to visit the Saint Michael’s Center for Women and Gender. Located on the Saint Michael’s campus, the Center for Women and Gender often hosts discussions on gender issues as well as pancake breakfasts for the Saint Michael’s community throughout the academic year.
We also offer an exchange program with the University of Vermont. With permission of the program coordinator, you have the opportunity to take class in UVM’s Women’s Studies department.
Learning Outcomes
The following formalized learning goals govern the shape of our major/minor and inform our practices of student assessment:
- familiarity and working knowledge of major concepts and vocabulary in the interdisciplinary fields of feminist, gender and sexuality, and queer studies
- understanding of historical and contemporary gender and LGBTQIA+ issues
- appreciation for the potential of critical analysis of gender and sexuality to advance understandings of the historical and contemporary formations of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and gender normativity
- ability to explain, verbally and in writing, how different categories of analysis, such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, global inequalities, and ability, interact with each other in the processes of privilege, oppression, and resistance
- a commitment to social justice that positively transforms our communities in ways that value LGBTQIA+ people
- application of concepts and theories related to gender and sexuality studies to a disciplinary or interdisciplinary creative, scholarly, and/or activist project
In Depth
Our courses also examine the ways in which naturalized gender norms influence everyday practices and manifest in the words we use, the clothing we wear, the popular culture we create or consume, the family structures we inhabit, and the laws and public policies we obey or defy. Our program pays particular attention to how gender and sexuality intersect with race, class, ethnicity, national belonging, and transnational movement(s).
Special Opportunities
We encourage our student to be actively involved in contemporary gender issues and many of our students chose to do this through service learning opportunities. Some of our students intern and volunteer at places like Women Helping Battered Women, the Lund Family Center, and Women’s Rape Crisis Center in Burlington.
Another way to get involved is to visit the Saint Michael’s Center for Women and Gender. Located on the Saint Michael’s campus, the Center for Women and Gender often hosts discussions on gender issues as well as pancake breakfasts for the Saint Michael’s community throughout the academic year.
We also offer an exchange program with the University of Vermont. With permission of the program coordinator, you have the opportunity to take class in UVM’s Women’s Studies department.
Learning Outcomes
The following formalized learning goals govern the shape of our major/minor and inform our practices of student assessment:
- familiarity and working knowledge of major concepts and vocabulary in the interdisciplinary fields of feminist, gender and sexuality, and queer studies
- understanding of historical and contemporary gender and LGBTQIA+ issues
- appreciation for the potential of critical analysis of gender and sexuality to advance understandings of the historical and contemporary formations of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and gender normativity
- ability to explain, verbally and in writing, how different categories of analysis, such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, global inequalities, and ability, interact with each other in the processes of privilege, oppression, and resistance
- a commitment to social justice that positively transforms our communities in ways that value LGBTQIA+ people
- application of concepts and theories related to gender and sexuality studies to a disciplinary or interdisciplinary creative, scholarly, and/or activist project