Mission Statement

As a community of scholars/teachers/learners we are devoted to understanding the diverse lives, issues, and voices of women in our multicultural and international world. We seek to use this knowledge to inform our critical practice in our own lives, the university, and the broader community for the purpose of creating a more just and equitable society.

Five Year Strategic Plan

To provide a course of study to examine and understand gender as it is constructed within and through differences of ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nationality.

To use the principles of feminist process in our teaching/learning, program development, and work with the community.

To help students develop skills of critical thinking, writing, speaking, and working in groups.

To provide students with the opportunity to gain experience in working with women's organizations in the community through service learning courses.

To provide future and current teachers with the knowledge and skills to integrate women's issues, voices, and women's histories into the k-12 curriculum.

To prepare and mentor students for their transition to further study and/or employment.

To advocate and serve as a resource for the mainstreaming of Women's Studies into the broader university curriculum.

To offer opportunities through special workshops, speakers, or events for the university and broader community to learn about important issues regarding gendered relations.

To engage in mutually enriching relationships with community members and organizations devoted to issues of gender and social justice.

Goals

• Obtain an additional faculty position in Women's Studies to provide greater human resources for program development
• Increase in funding (OE and/or through University Advancement) in order to fund several notable speakers to visit the campus each year
• Seek possible support from larger programs for donating one class every other year taught for Women's Studies by one of their faculty members

Goal Two: Create stronger linkages between Women's Studies and K-12 Education Strategies:

• Develop courses for future and current teachers to help them integrate Women's Studies into K-12 education
• Explore opportunities for working with educational administration degree programs regarding developing courses which address eliminating gender/race/sexual discrimination in the classroom.
• Reach out to education majors to encourage them to pursue a minor in Women's Studies

Goal Three: Maintain High Quality Curriculum Strategies:

• Provide opportunities for faculty development around the latest developments in Women's Studies Network with other CSU women's studies programs and learn from their strengths
• Assess new courses and make necessary changes for improvement
• Assess existing WS and cross-listed courses and advocate for/support the inclusion of current research/writing in Women's studies

Goal Four: Recruitment and retention of minors and majors Strategies:

• Offer enough sections of Introduction to Women's Studies so that the vast majority of students are freshman and sophomores (thereby introducing students to WS when they are deciding upon majors and minors)
• Enrich relationship with students involved in the Women's Center
• Hold an open house each year for potential minors and majors in Women's Studies
• Recruit students from College of the Redwoods and other community colleges and high schools
• Increase mentoring support for students regarding graduate school, job opportunities, and distance internships Create opportunities for students to be teaching assistants in Women's Studies courses

Goal Five: Increase ethnic diversity of Women's Studies faculty and students Strategies:

• Conduct outreach to campus student groups
• Ensure inclusive environment in Women's Studies classes - engage in proactive discussions/strategies regarding decolonizing women's studies classes
• Ensure that core Women's Studies courses fully integrate issues of race, class, sexuality, and nationality with analysis of gender
• Advocate for the integration of analysis of race, class, sexuality, and nationality with gender in courses offered by other departments and cross-listed with Women's Studies
• Continue to work with Ethnic Studies in building our programs together In hiring contexts make every effort to solicit applications from faculty of color (networking, personal contexts, outreach to graduate programs in Women's Studies, use of Women and Minority Faculty lists)

Goal Six: Strengthen Relationships with Community Members Strategies:

• Meet with members of the community to discuss mutually beneficial relationships
• Identify community members who will be Associates of Women's Studies - entitling them to library privileges
• Explore the possibility of creating one unit seminars on topics of interest to community members --perhaps for summer session
• Explore new opportunities for internships for Women's Studies students

Goal Seven: Strengthening Cross-disciplinary Linkages Strategies:

• Continue to work with Ethnic Studies in building our programs together
• Foster relationships with students and faculty in CNRS and COPS
• Support the development of a minor and/or other programs in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Studies and work to build our programs together
• Cross-list courses with more departments
• Explore the possibility of having one or more of our upper-division seminars fulfill major requirements in other disciplines through advocating the necessity of integrating analysis of gendered relations into all aspects of their curriculum
• Explore possibilities for Women's Studies' participation in FIGS and JIGS Work with other programs regarding sponsoring of speakers