About the Department

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies advances feminist and queer scholarship in the service of liberation. Our WGSS department is one of the oldest such programs in the United States. We have been the hub of feminist interdisciplinarity at the University of Cincinnati since our founding in 1974. Building on the legacy of collective organizing and movement building that established WGSS as an academic discipline, our faculty remain committed to engaging queer and feminist work in the classroom and beyond.

The WGSS Department offers graduate and undergraduate programs, including degrees and certificates. In addition to a robust academic program, WGSS students can expect to be part of an intellectually rigorous and transnational community. Our students and faculty conduct systematic feminist analysis of power, queer ways of knowing and being, developing creative practice and build tools that support freedom and justice. A WGSS degree provides students with a chance to develop critical thinking, expansive and creative approaches to research and knowledge creation, management capabilities through agenda setting, meeting facilitation, and presentation, and diverse writing skills.

Whether at the undergraduate or graduate level, students can expect small class sizes, rigorous discussion, creative assignments, and the chance to work closely and collaboratively with faculty and peers. 

Our vision is to create an intellectually robust transnational feminist community comprising students, staff, and faculty who are committed to and engaged in the work necessary to dismantle supremacist cultures in our disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, personal lives, social institutions, and the various spaces which we occupy. 

Our mission is to nurture interdisciplinary transnational queer and feminist scholarship, and liberatory pedagogies, and promote creative political engagement; empower students with the tools to evaluate and transform the conditions under which we live, while preparing them for fulfilling employment after graduation; and facilitate a culture of feminist community, collaboration, pleasure and joy at the University of Cincinnati. 

Undergraduates can pursue a WGSS major (BA) or minor, and a certificate in LGBTQ Studies. Learn more about our undergraduate programs! 

Our most popular graduate program is the Master of Arts. We typically accept between 8 and 10 graduate students each year. Additionally, graduate students can pursue a joint degree (MA/JD) with the law school or explore one of our other double degree programs (MA/PhD). We also offer a graduate certificate program. Learn more about our graduate programs!