Women’s Studies Program celebrates 25 years at ETSU

JOHNSON CITY (April 22, 2021) – More than 25 years ago, the Women’s Studies Program established its roots at East Tennessee State University. Since then, the program has sought to provide feminist education on the campus and throughout the region through scholarship, activism and community building.

To commemorate this noteworthy milestone, Women’s Studies held a virtual celebration on Monday, April 26, in which the program honored its past at ETSU and looked forward to an exciting future. The celebration featured foremothers of the program, as well as a timeline that allowed attendees to “walk through” the program’s history and learn about major events in Women’s Studies’ past. 

The foremothers of the Women’s Studies Program, along with the Women’s Studies Steering Committee, fought diligently to institute and grow the Women’s Studies Program. One of the Women’s Studies foremothers and current professor in ETSU’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Dr. Martha Copp, recalls many of the faculty who supported Women’s Studies being “fired up about supporting students who wanted to take feminist courses.”

Since the creation of the minor in 1993 and after many years of successful growth, the Steering Committee was urged to build a bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies. Under the leadership of founding director Dr. Amber Kinser, the new major became official on Jan. 25, 2007, and students started declaring their majors the very next day.

From 2007 to 2020, Women’s Studies graduated majors focused on civic engagement, social justice and change. Those graduates strive to help satisfy the continuing need locally, nationally and globally to improve the lives, opportunities and futures of women.

Today, the program offers courses ranging from “Sex, Gender, and the Body” and “Feminist Thought and Practice” to “Men and Masculinities.”