Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies
Transformative. Social change. Personal Empowerment. Develop leadership tools to inspire positive change in your careers and communities.
GSWS – Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies, Certificate
Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies
Offered as an Academic Certification
GSWS is a dynamic, inter- and multi-disciplinary program. The curriculum draws from the social sciences, humanities, arts, and sciences. Students cultivate a critical perspective which factors in gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, class, (dis)ability, and embodiment that will add depth to any major field of study.
Students earning a certificate in GSWS actively engage in social justice activism by developing their skills with advocacy, community engagement, and theory-informed praxis. The GSWS program provides students with the conceptual tools to explore and understand our world through an intersectional framework and encourages students to make connections between macro social structures and individual lives. GSWS certificate students discover many pathways into innovative work in a variety of fields.
Degree Fit
Program Preparation
Students taking GSWS courses learn about themselves and the world through critical thinking and personal and social empowerment. GSWS certificate students develop powerful social activist skills while learning how to integrate feminist and queer theories and methodologies into their home disciplines.
Degree Roadmap
GSWS certificate students complete 28 credits. Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Feminist and Queer Theory in Action, and Explorations in GSWS or Intersectionality make up the certificate’s core courses. Students connect with GSWS faculty to select four electives in our interdisciplinary program that would meet their interests.
Degree Integration
GSWS certificate students develop their activist and leadership skills that benefit them in a variety of professional fields such as policy, law, government, media, education, art, and health and social services.
Guided Pathways
Contact: Kylan Mattias de Vries – 541.552.6759 – devriesk@sou.edu
Associate Degree Paths
Rogue Community College: AA Oregon Transfer, Sociology/Social Work
Umpqua Community College: AA Oregon Transfer, Sociology
Similar Majors
Similar Minors & Certificates
Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Minor – Certificate in Transgender Studies – Certificate in Ethnic & Racial Studies
Similar Micro-Credentials
Credit for Prior Learning – Learn More
Section Contents: GSWS Programs
*The Ethnic & Racial Studies Minor degree is housed within the ERS program website.
Contact the GSWS Program
SOU Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6759
– Questions About GSWS? –