A Department of Its Own

As reported in The Crimson on Tuesday, various members of the Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality are saying that the next step for WGS at Harvard is to become a full-fledged department. We could not agree more.

Founded in 1987, WGS—for the last quarter century—has brought to the Harvard community voices and perspectives typically underrepresented and often ignored in the academy. It is high time that the University officially recognize the value of this discipline by transforming it from a degree-granting committee into a department on equal footing with its peers.

Of course, WGS is not the only discipline embodied in degree-granting committee. In fact, there are nine of these, which include interdisciplinary fields such as Social Studies, History and Literature, and Folklore and Mythology. In advocating for the departmental recognition of WGS, we are in no way denying the value of these other committees or arguing that they do not deserve the resources that departmental status affords. We merely believe that WGS—because of what it represents—deserves recognition now.

Our reasoning is not based on the impressive fact that WGS courses are increasingly popular: After all, the number of undergraduates enrolled in these offerings rose from 388 in 2008-2009 to 545 last year. Nor does our argument rely on the reality that some students are made to pursue WGS-related plans of study elsewhere in the University because the current committee cannot always provide them with the breadth, structure, and faculty supervision they need. While these are credible reasons themselves, they do not address the heart of the issue. In other words, WGS must become a department because a university ostensibly committed to “Veritas” has an obligation to support, promote, and advance perspectives that add to the collective conversation inside its gates in order for that conversation to influence and even improve the larger societal conversation outside its gates.

Although committee-status does not necessarily imply a lack of commitment on the part of the University, the University has the opportunity to join the ranks of the few universities across the country that has recognized this discipline with departmental status. It should go without saying that questions of gender and sexuality are common to all cultures and all periods of history, and it is time that Harvard recognize the universality inherent in the study of women, gender, and sexuality.

To that end, making WGS a department would afford the program several key advantages it currently lacks. It would enjoy greater resources than it does as a committee, the ability to craft a more substantial body of course offerings, and the ability to have more faculty tenured in the discipline itself rather than in a different department. All of these changes would encourage more students to encounter this area of study, and an official WGS department would bring the study of women, gender, and sexuality the increased support and recognition it deserves.