The Women's and Gender Studies Program gives students a theoretical base for a systematic analysis of the construction of gender and the historical, economic, political, social, and cultural experiences of women. It is an interdisciplinary program drawing on resources from the Social Sciences, the Humanities, and the Sciences.
The Women's Studies Program at Dartmouth was established in 1978, the first such program in any of the previously all-male Ivy League colleges. Women's and Gender Studies may be undertaken as a program for a major, minor, modified major and a certificate. Women's and Gender Studies graduates report that the critical tools learned in the Program have helped them succeed in a wide variety of careers and further studies.
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies (GLBTS) courses examine gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender identities and politics in historical and contemporary contexts. Rather than take sex and gender as given, in or by nature, many of the GLBT courses investigate sex and gender as sites of bodily and discursive contestation. GLBT classes first appeared in the Dartmouth curriculum in the Spring of 1992. GLBTS topics courses were taught occasionally until 1996 when funding from the Carpenter Foundation supported the development of an introductory course in GLBTS. Looking for a more permanent solution, the Dean of the Faculty asked Women's and Gender Studies if the Program could become the home, at least temporarily, for GLBTS courses. Currently, classes with glbt/queer content are available in a number of departments and programs as well as Women's and Gender Studies.
