Program Director and Associate Professor Schrock
Part-time instructor Trimble

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Ohio Wesleyan is an interdisciplinary program that examines how historical and current constructions of gender impact society. The program has a three-fold mission. First, we aim to engage students in the intellectual content of the discipline, which examines women’s issues, the role that constructions of gender play in shaping our thinking and social institutions, and the relationship between gender and other aspects of identity, including race, class, age, religion, and sexuality in society. Second, we strive to instill in students the importance of interdisciplinary inquiry. They develop an understanding of women’s and gender issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, that is, one that recognizes the interconnections among the disciplines and that draws on the methodologies and knowledge-bases of more than one discipline, so as to analyze problems related to women and gender in their full and multifaceted character. Third, we aim to show our students the real-life implications of their academic engagement in the context of globalization. That is, we challenge students to be cognizant of the social and ethical implications of knowledge practices and to see the relationship between theory and practice in both local and global contexts.