Ethnic & Gender Studies Program
The Ethnic & Gender Studies Program (EGS) includes a B.A. in Ethnic & Gender Studies and interdisciplinary minors in African American Studies, Native American Studies, Latinx Studies, Multi-Ethnic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. The EGS major and the five minors are housed within Interdisciplinary Studies (INDS). Dr. Jeanette McVicker is the program coordinator for EGS.
The mission of the Ethnic & Gender Studies Program (EGS) is to promote the values of diversity, equity, and social justice through education, campus and community outreach, and advocacy. To achieve this mission, EGS is committed to:
- Foregrounding knowledge of marginalized groups including, but not limited to, women, the LGBTQ community, intersectionality, and racial and ethnic minorities.
- Recruiting and retaining students, faculty, and staff by demonstrating that everyone has a voice in academic discussions and debates.
- Empowering students, via our academic programs, to use both experiential and academic knowledge to work for local and global change in ways that are meaningful to them.
- Educating the campus and community about issues of diversity and social justice, both inside and outside of the classroom.
- Collaborating with various constituencies on campus to enhance knowledge of diversity and social justice.
- The creation of a campus community in which persons of all identities are welcome, understood, and respected.
- Promoting student and faculty research related to diversity and social justice.
The Ethnic & Gender Studies Program directly supports the SUNY Fredonia campus mission and strategic plan and SUNY’s general education goals promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice (DEISJ) coursework. EGS degree programs empower students to be knowledgeable agents of change to foster inclusive, equitable and respectful dialogues and to take action within their chosen professions and communities.
Our Values
- Diversity and inclusion as a strength
- Collaboration and dialogue across differences
- Creative problem solving
- Responsible leadership that fosters the growth of new leaders
- Service to others
Student Learning Outcomes
- Communicate cognizance (understanding, awareness, knowledge) of one’s own background and how different social positions may lead others to have different perspectives and experiences
- Demonstrate an awareness of the way that historically and socially constructed difference has affected the distribution of rights, responsibilities, and resources
- Study, evaluate, and explain what it means to be socially responsible in the context of the increasingly diverse world
- Theorize, assess, and practice problem solving strategies that would allow individuals and groups to address processes that limit full and equal participation of all groups in society.
Student Organizations
These are some student organizations related to the program's fields of study.
- Fredonia Feminists
- FREDpride
- Pride Alliance
Professional Organizations
These are some professional, scholarly, and activist organizations representing the program's fields of study.
- National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), https://www.nwsa.org
- Ethnic Studies Association (ESA), https://ethnicstudies.org
About Ethnic & Gender Studies
What’s the value of diversity coursework?
The Ethnic & Gender Studies Program goes beyond a definition of diversity as mere difference to understand and analyze the way difference is used to create and justify an unequal distribution of rights, responsibilities, and resources.
2022 NEA report “Culturally Responsive & Racially Inclusive Education is Legal and Benefits all Students” by Miguel A. Gonzalez
“The Very Foundation of Good Citizenship” 2022 joint report by the NEA and IFAA discussing the benefits for students taking ethnic studies coursework.
What is social justice?
Social justice means full and equitable participation of people from all social identity groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs, keep them safe, and allow them to be both self-determining and interdependent. Accomplishing this goal requires building and maintaining fair and equitable distribution of resources and social processes for all, in a democratic and participatory environment that respects diversity and working collaboratively.
(From Readings in Diversity and Social Justice, 4th ed., Ed. Maurianne Adams et al., Routledge, 2017)
What’s the value of gender studies?
The value of coursework in women and gender studies emerged from women of color feminist scholarship.
The term “intersectionality” was first coined by black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Intersectionality refers to the ways in which social systems such as race, class, and gender converge, or intersect, to impact people’s experiences of privilege and oppression in particular ways.
Psychology Today article by Deborah A. Cohan, Ph.D. “Why Take Gender Studies Courses?” (Dec 2021)