Scholarship and teaching on gender have had a place at Northwestern for more than thirty years, beginning with the founding of an interdisciplinary Program on Women in 1971. Northwestern established a Women's Studies Program in 1980 and at that time began to offer an undergraduate certificate in Women's Studies, the first of which were earned a few years later. In 1991, the University made its first faculty appointments in the program; in 1992, Women's Studies awarded its first graduate certificate; and in 1993, Women's Studies was recognized as a major by the College of Arts and Sciences.
With a change of name from "Women's Studies" to "Gender Studies" in 2000, the program has built upon the strong foundations of several decades of women's studies scholarship and feminist theory, and has expanded its commitment to include the study of gender more broadly, sexuality studies, and related cutting-edge perspectives on ethnicity, race, and globalism.
Past directors of the Gender Studies program at Northwestern have included: Arlene Kaplan Daniels (Sociology), Tessie Liu (History), Rae Moses (Linguistics), Alexandra Owen (History), Frances Freeman Paden (Writing Program), Sylvie Romanowski (French and Italian), Tilde Sankovitch (French and Italian), Mimi White (Radio, Television, and Film), and Jane Winston (French and Italian).
