This year, Illinois State University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program celebrates its landmark 50th anniversary. Like other Women’s Studies programs across the nation, our WGSS Program emerged during a resurgence of the women’s movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The program began as an interdisciplinary sequence of the Ethnic and Cultural Studies minor in 1974, with Dr. Patricia Chesboro serving as its coordinator. The first classes in what was then called the Women’s Studies sequence included History of Women in America, Human Sexuality, Afro-American Literature, Studies in Black Music, and Social Psychology.
When Dr. Chesboro retired in 1987, Dr. Beverly A. Smith stepped in as acting director. She started a number of new projects including a small Resource Library. She also supported students in their creation of the registered student organization, Gender Issues Forum, known today as Feminist Led Activist Movement to Empower (FLAME).
Dr. Cynthia Huff took over as director in 1989, and by 1991, Women’s Studies had become its own minor with a new office, graduate assistant, and first official faculty member aside from the director, Dr. Alison Bailey. By the time Dr. Huff returned to the English Department full time in 1995, leaving Women’s Studies to acting half-time director Dr. Sandra D. Harmon, the program’s enrollment had increased substantially to over 50 students. Dr. Harmon saw the inclusion of a second graduate assistant and half-time secretary, as well as the program’s monthly newsletter and Illinois State’s first Women’s Studies Symposium in March of 1996.
In January of 1997, Dr. Valentine Moghadam became the first full-time director of Women’s Studies. Dr. Moghadam led the program for the next six years. She initiated both the move to Rachel Cooper Hall, where WGSS is housed today, and the hiring of Mrs. Rozel White, the program’s first full-time secretary.
Dr. Moghadam also partnered with other campus units to develop a conference on women and employment, a weekly international studies seminar series, and the Women’s Capabilities Initiative (WCI), an academic, training, and community outreach program that addressed the situation, needs, and prospects of low-income women in Central Illinois.
In 2001, Professor Emeritus Joseph Laurenti worked with the program to establish its first scholarship, the Luellen Laurenti Scholarship, in memory of his wife who was a professor in what was then the Department of Foreign Languages and a celebrated women’s rights activist. The program’s second scholarship, the Dorothy E. Lee Endowment Fund for Nontraditional Women Students, was established two years later.
With Dr. Harmon’s retirement in 2004 and Dr. Moghadam’s resignation in 2005, Dr. Bailey became the permanent director of Women’s Studies. She hired Dr. Becca Chase as assistant director. Dr. Bailey ushered in the Bloomington-Normal chapter of the national Clothesline Project and paired the event with the existing Take Back the Night March against sexual violence. The seminar space in the WGS office suite was soon converted into the current WGSS Resource Center. Bailey later transformed the WGSS office hallway into The Rachel Cooper Student Art Gallery.
In spring of 2006, the program’s name was changed to Women’s and Gender Studies, and a new five-year strategic plan was drafted. Dr. Kyle Ciani (HIS) served as acting director from January to August 2011, and again for the 2018-2019 school year. Dr. Tom Gerschick stepped in as academic advisor in 2013. At that time, affiliated faculty began to explore the possibility of offering a queer studies concentration.
The WGSS Program had a series of assistant directors including: Dr. Stacia Kock, Dr. Tanya-Diaz-Kozlowski, Dr. Jenna Goldsmith, and today, Dr. Jacklyn Weier. The program was officially renamed as Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the fall of 2019.
After 50 years since its inception, the program continues to prepare students to think, act, and write critically about contemporary issues through a variety of interdisciplinary and multicultural lenses. WGSS boasts one minor and two certificates, over 70 faculty members from 21 departments/schools within five affiliated colleges at Illinois State, and hundreds of alumni who go on to positively impact the world, wherever they may end up.
If you are interested in learning more about WGSS’s time at Illinois State, please check out the following events:
Exhibit: “WGSS at 50: Celebrating the Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies Program,” April 1-May 11. Milner Library, Benway Gallery, 2nd floor.
This exhibit uses photos, objects, and documents from the Illinois State archives to illustrate how our program engaged the American political and cultural landscape between 1974-2024. In particular, the exhibit focuses on feminist activism in the Illinois State community, challenges inherent in establishing and retaining WGSS curriculum and programming, and our ever-present commitment to EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion).
Dr. Lauren Gutterman, “How Should We Teach LGBTQAI+ History?” Thursday, April 11, 6-7 p.m., Milner Library, Speaker’s Corner, 2nd floor.
Professor Gutterman teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on women, gender, and sexuality, popular culture, and social movements at the University of Texas at Austin. She will speak about her current research and methods for preserving queer histories in Austin, Texas.
27th Annual WGSS Student Research Symposium, Friday, April 12, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Bone Student Center’s Prairie Room.
The keynote speaker this year is Dr. Lauren Gutterman, associate professor of American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and affiliate of LGBTQ Studies and History at The University of Texas at Austin. Her keynote is titled “Queer Survival: LGBTQ Leadership in the Child Sexual Abuse Survivors’ Movement.”
WGSS 50th Anniversary Hatch Campaign Fundraiser, April 1-30.
Your contribution to the WGSS Excellence Fund will directly impact our program’s initiatives, including our annual WGSS student research symposium, Student Resource Center, the Rachel Cooper Student Art Gallery, and our WGSS Speaker Series/Queer Talks programming.
