The Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program is administered by the chair and other members of the program's core faculty. Core faculty are those who are actively involved in the program, who teach FGSS courses, advise FGSS majors and senior theses, and may serve as program chair. The program sponsors an annual symposium, the FGSS Salon, and the Diane Weiss Memorial Lecture.

Major program. The prerequisite for becoming a major is taking one of the Gateway courses. These courses are designated annually. They currently include FGSS207/ANTH207 (Gender in a Transnational Perspective), FGSS210/ENGL211 (Ethics of Embodiment), FGSS128/PHIL128 (Sex, Morality, and the Law), FGSS241/SISP241 (Introduction to Feminist Science Studies), FGSS254/SOC223 (Gender and Social Movements), FGSS269/HIST179 (Sophomore Seminar: Gender and History), FGSS271/ HIST273/AFAM272 (Engendering the African Diaspora), FGSS277/PHIL277 (Feminist Philosophy and Moral Theory), FGSS293/SISP293 (Gender, Science, and Sexuality), and FGSS217/AFAM205 (Key Issues in Black Feminism). Students ordinarily take a gateway course during either semester of the sophomore year and declare the major in the spring semester. At this point the student is assigned to a faculty advisor. At this point, too, students are wise to familiarize themselves with requirements for writing a senior honors thesis, since these may affect curricular choices for the junior year. In the fall semester of the junior year, the student ordinarily takes Feminist Theory (FGSS209). During this semester the student, in consultation with the advisor, develops a major proposal that lists the courses that will compose the student's major course of study, including a description of the student's chosen concentration within the major. The Major Proposal Form, approved by the advisor and with the concentration rationale attached, is submitted to the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program office by the end of the fall semester.

The concentration rationale is a brief explanation (one or two pages) of the student's chosen concentration within the major and a rationale for the courses the student chooses to constitute it. The major as a whole consists of 10 courses as follows: Three core courses (a gateway course,  FGSS209 and FGSS405), two distribution courses (one each from an area outside the concentration), the four courses comprising the concentration, and senior research in the form of the senior essay or senior honors thesis. The senior year is devoted to completion of the course work for the concentration, work on a senior essay or thesis, and participation in the senior seminar. Only two credits transferred from another institution may be applied to the major.

Core courses. Every major must take the following courses:

• One gateway course. These are designated annually and serve as introductions to the interdisciplinary field of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. Gateway courses examine gender as a factor in the politics and practices of the production of knowledge and of social and cultural life, with particular attention to the intersection of gender with other identity categories and modes of power―race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity.
   
• Feminist Theory (FGSS209). What is feminist theory? What is the relationship of feminist theory to feminist practice? How has this relationship evolved since the advent of second-wave feminism during the civil rights era? This course examines various, and often conflicting, responses to these large questions by tracing contemporary developments in feminist theory and considers how feminism has been articulated in relation to theories of representation, subjectivity, history, sexuality, technology, and globalization, among others, paying particular attention to the unstable nexus of gender, sexual, racial and class differences.
   
• Senior Seminar (FGSS405). Set up as a workshop, the goal of this course is to develop an enabling and challenging intellectual environment for majors to intensively work through the theoretical, methodological, and practical concerns connected with their senior research projects.

Requirements.

Core courses.

• Gateway courses. In 2008-2009, these include FGSS210/ENGL211 (Ethics of Embodiment), FGSS269/HIST179 (Sophomore Seminar: Gender and History), FGSS271/ HIST273/AFAM272 (Engendering the African Diaspora), and FGSS217/AFAM 205 (Key Issues in Black Feminism).
   

• FGSS209 (Feminist Theory) and FGSS405 (Senior Seminar)

Distribution requirement. A distribution requirement of two courses from two different feminist, gender, and sexuality areas of study categories; the courses must be from two different disciplines and should not overlap in their content with courses that make up the student's concentration in the major.

Areas of study.

• Gender and  history. Courses offered explore the use of gender as a category for historical analysis; the construction of gendered bodies in historical contexts, and idea of gender as something that needs to be historicized.
   

• Gender and society. Students are introduced to major social-scientific perspectives on gender. Topics might include socialization; intellectual and personal development of gendered, raced, and sexualized bodies; theories of gender inequality; and analysis of the major social institutions organizing gender relations, such as the family, the labor market, media and the polity.
   

• Gender and representation. Gender is studied as a social category in relation to theories of representation. These theories have been used fruitfully as tools of analysis in the study of fine arts, literature, film, music, dance, and popular culture.
   

• Gender and  science. This scientific study of sexual difference and gender, including work in genetics, physiology, psychology, and primatology, also includes studies of scientific explanation the historical, philosophical, and sociological analysis of science as knowledge about sex and gender.

Concentration. Four courses forming the area of concentration should represent a coherent inquiry into some issue, period, area, discipline, or intellectual approach. Normally the courses will be drawn from various departmental offerings and will be selected in consultation with an advisor. Courses that are relevant to the theme of the concentration need not necessarily have women or gender as a primary concern nor do the need to be cross-listed with FGSS. 

Senior research. Completion of a senior essay (one credit) or an honors thesis (two credits) on a theme or topic related to the student's area of concentration within the major is required. Rising seniors wishing to write a senior honors thesis must have an average of B+ in five of the eight courses that count for the major.

These five include the following: the gateway course, FGSS209 (Feminist Theory), and three of the four courses from the student's area of concentration.

Prospective thesis writers must submit to the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program chair in the second semester of the junior year a transcript on which they have identified the five courses that meet this requirement (or will meet it by the end of the semester).