Intercollegiate Women's Studies of the Claremont Colleges

MISSION STATEMENT

Intercollegiate Women’s Studies of the Claremont Colleges is an interdisciplinary program emphasizing feminist scholarship, which is based on the premise that gender is significant in social, cultural and scientific study. It addresses the culturally and historically specific production of sexual difference, on the wide-ranging impact of feminist research, both inside the academy and in the larger society, and on the intersections of gender with other social categories such as race, class, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, cultural difference and colonial and post-colonial experience. Courses in Women’s Studies and in the Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Program focus on the relations of power that have produced gender inequality, analyzing this inequality as a human construction subject to change, rather than an innate, ordained condition. To this end, the Women’s Studies encourages alternative pedagogies, fosters the development of new paradigms of knowledge and explores the study of women as a source of personal, institutional and social transformation.

More than 150 faculty members in Humanities, the Sciences and the Social Sciences are affiliated with Intercollegiate Women’s Studies, teaching about 70 cross-listed courses annually and sharing in policy making. Programming is guided by a Coordinating Committee and a Curriculum Committee, consisting of student and faculty representatives from the six colleges.

Women’s Studies programs are offered at all of the Claremont Colleges. Pitzer College offers a concentration in Gender and Feminist Studies; Pomona College offers a major in Women’s Studies linked with another program or discipline; and Scripps College offers a major in Gender and Women’s Studies, either through a disciplinary or interdisciplinary track. Additionally, Claremont McKenna College offers a Gender Studies Sequence, and a minor is available at Pomona College, Scripps College and Harvey Mudd College. Additionally, Claremont Graduate University offers a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies in Religion and an M.A. in Applied Women’s Studies.

Besides supporting a broad Women’s Studies curriculum, Intercollegiate Women’s Studies also sponsors lectures, events, conferences and faculty seminars; publishes a quarterly newsletter and a brochure of each semester’s courses; and maintains a library of Women’s Studies books, magazines, videos and information about Women’s Studies programs, internships and financial aid. The program operates out of the Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Teaching and Research Center located in Vita Nova Hall on the Scripps College campus. This Center houses the library and is used by faculty and students.