Department of Interdisciplinary Studies

Welcome to the website of Appalachian's Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies (GWS) program, the oldest program of its kind in the UNC system, and second oldest in the state of North Carolina.

We are a degree-granting program housed in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. At the undergraduate level, we offer a GWS B.A., a GWS minor, a Girls' Studies minor, and an LGBT Studies minor. At the graduate level, we offer a 12-hour graduate certificate and a 9-hour graduate minor in GWS.

As a field of study, GWS interrogates the beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and norms about gender, women, and sexuality and how they intersect with factors such as race, ability, nationality, and class. We train our students to be strong critical thinkers, adept researchers, and clear communicators with a deep understanding of problems focused on gender, women, and sexuality in national and transnational contexts and the analytical skills to offer creative solutions to them.

We pride ourselves in engaged teaching and individualized student mentoring, and we are particularly proud of our alumni, who pursue a broad range of careers in law, advocacy, policy analysis, politics, social work, nonprofits, education, healthcare, and cultural institutions.