Mission Statement:

The Gender Studies Program is a multidisciplinary community of scholars committed to a transformative analysis of gender as it intersects with social class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, age, and nationality.  In our research and our work with students, we treat gender as both an important category of analysis and a powerful social structure that profoundly shapes our human experience. Through innovative and collaborative teaching, scholarship, and service, our program promotes new knowledge and socially responsible activism.  A strong and viable Gender Studies Program is essential to the mission of EOU in educating global citizens prepared to live and work in a diverse and increasingly interconnected world.

Purpose:

The Gender Studies Program provides its students with an ability to assess the gendered dimensions of their past, their intrapersonal and social interactions, the groups and institutions of which they are a part, the literature they read, the print and electronic communications they receive, the scientific evidence on which they rely, and the cultures and subcultures in which they participate.  We seek to develop in our students  a "gender-sensitive perspective"  that will enable them to bring to their other courses, and to their life outside the university, the kinds of critical questions essential to imagining--and working to create—an inclusive and more equitable human community.

A Gender Sensitive Perspective

With a gender sensitive perspective, students will be able to bring to their other courses--and their lives outside the university--the kinds of critical questions essential to imagining and working to create an inclusive and more equitable community.

Through our unique distance education program, EOU students may minor in Gender Studies on campus, or obtain a Liberal Studies Degree with an emphasis on Gender Studies and Business Administration.

Gender Studies Program students are active in the EOU Community throughout the school year

Often as a component of an EOU service learning course, or as volunteers at the Women's Research and Resource Center, G.S. students work to host a variety of campus speakers (and events) througout the year; some past speakers include author Inga Muscio, (see photo) who wrote CUNT: a declaration of independance, and authors Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner, (see photo in header) who co-wrote MANIFESTA: young women, feminism, and the future. 

Visit the EOU SAGE- Women's Research and Resource Center for event listings, or call at 541-962-3021 for information on how you can become involved in continuing feminist inquiry at EOU!