WGS Recommendation Report

Evaluating the State of the York College of Pennsylvania

Women and Gender Studies Program:

A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Madeline Yonker, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition

York College of Pennsylvania

Prepared by: Kyle Frost, Junior

Professional Writing Major

November 11, 2015

1

Abstract

“Evaluating the State of the York College of Pennsylvania Women and Gender Studies Program:

A Recommendation Report”

Prepared by: Kyle Frost, Junior Professional Writing Major

On October 29, 2015, Dr. Madeline Yonker, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition,

assigned a research project in which my colleagues and I were to investigate the current state of

the Women and Gender Studies Minor here at York College of Pennsylvania and develop a

recommendation for the future course of action to take with the program. First, a list of tasks

were developed in order to determine the state of the WGS minor. Interviews were conducted

with staff here at York College, to acquire a better understanding of the state of the minor.

Additionally, the minor and courses available at nearby schools were looked into to see how the

program compares. A brief survey was also verbally given to 56 random students to judge the

awareness and desirability of the WGS minor. Finally, interviews were conducted of several

members of the LAMBDA organization to determine the views of the WGS minor from the

perspective of related organizations. Overall, there was an overwhelming agreement between the

interviews that the minor is lacking and has been stagnant for many years with as few as zero

participants during some years. Furthermore, the surveys revealed that students have incredibly

low awareness of the minor as well as low interest. However, they did show some interest in the

courses themselves, as did the LAMBDA members who expressed a desire for more courses.

This desire was supported by the lack of course diversity of the WGS minor at YCP in

comparison to nearby schools. Additionally, the LAMBDA members and the YCP staff noted

that career or real world applicability of the minor were issues. Thus, I recommend that we

revamp the current WGS minor. The current curriculum needs to be expanded upon to

encompass a larger variety of course topics. In addition, the current courses should be renamed

or rebranded in a way that will allow students to connect with them better. Once those are

completed, advertising must be done to increase the program visibility and bring more students

in.

Keywords: WGS, women, gender, studies, minor, York,

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………...…………3

Introduction………………………………………………………………………...…….………4

Research Methods………………………………………………………………………….…….6

Results…………………………………………………………………………………………….8

Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………...………10

Recommendation………………………………………………………………………………..12

References………………………………………………………………………………….……13

Appendix A: YCP Staff Interview Questions…………………………………………...…….14

Appendix B: YCP Student Survey……………………………………………….……………15

Appendix C: LAMBDA Member Questions……………………………………………….…16

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Executive Summary

To determine the best course of action to take with the Women and Gender Studies minor here at

York College, Dr. Madeline Yonker asked my colleagues and I to investigate the current state of

the minor and develop a recommendation.

The minor itself was founded over a decade ago with Dr. Julie Amberg being one of the co-

founders. There are roughly 14 unique courses available to take in the minor. Additionally, there

are only 3 students currently enrolled in the minor program.

In order to carry out this research, we completed the tasks listed in our memo submitted on

October 30, 2015. Our tasks included: interviewing WGS-related professors at YCP, completing

online research of other schools, distributing a student awareness survey, interviewing members

of the YCP LAMBDA organization, and reviewing and compiling the data with all colleagues.

Once this was complete, the information was analyzed and a recommendation was formed.

Our findings were that currently the minor is stagnant. There are only 3 students currently

involved in it and that number has never risen past 7 in previous years with as few as 0 in other

years. Also, the minor is not as advertised as other minors on campus, and student awareness and

desirability of the minor is very low with only 45% of students being aware it even exists.

Students showed interest in courses themselves more so than the WGS minor. This is all likely a

result of several factors including: limited number and variety of courses, incredibly poor

advertising, and poor perceptions of real world applicability of the minor. As a result, I conclude

that the minor is not achieving its full potential on campus and needs to be revised to increase

desirability and awareness, and thus increase student participation.

Thus, I recommend that the current WGS minor be revamped in order to solve this problem. The

current curriculum needs to be expanded upon greatly. Both a larger number and variety of

courses needs to be offered to meet the desires of students. In addition, the current courses

should be renamed or rebranded in a way that will allow students to connect and resonate with

them better. Once those are completed, advertising must be done to increase the program

visibility and bring more students in. The advertising should emphasize the real world

applicability of the minor in order to draw in students that would otherwise be deterred by a

minor they perceive as impractical.

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Introduction

In order to determine the state of the Women’s and Gender Studies minor and to determine the

best course of action for the minor, Dr. Madeline Yonker has requested that we research the

programs and curriculum at other schools, interview York College staff involved in the minor on

potential areas of improvement, collect data on the attitudes of students towards the minor and

make a recommendation on the direction that should be taken with the Women and Gender

Studies minor.

Currently there has been a general stagnation with the minor with little change in the curriculum

or popularity. Of the nearly 5,000 enrolled students at YCP, there are only three WGS minor

students this year. In previous years there have been less than ten students involved in the minor

per year with as few as zero students in a given year. This is not ideal because it is the student

body to its full potential while simultaneously affecting the school’s and the Humanities

Department’s image negatively. A negative image of the school and the program may lead to

even further degeneration of the minor even beyond its current level.

To evaluate and assess the relevance of the WGS minor curriculum, we completed the following

tasks:

● Interviewing WGS professors at YCP to determine the state of the minor and search of

suggestions to improve it.

● Performing online research of the WGS minor and related curriculum at other schools to

compare to YCP.

● Interviewing students involved with the LAMBDA organization at YCP as to the state of

the WGS minor and their opinions of it.

● Distributing a brief survey to judge the awareness and attitudes of current YCP students

towards the WGS minor.

We determined that the current state of the WGS minor here at YCP is that it is not satisfactory

in comparison to that of other schools. Other schools have a greater number of WGS-oriented

courses available with seemingly more student interest in the minor than at YCP. Even staff,

including Dr. Taylor, Chair of the English and Humanities Department, agree that the WGS

program is out of date. Among the YCP students surveyed, some students expressed desire for

the WGS courses, but that did not necessarily translate to desire for the minor itself.

Furthermore, less than half of them were even aware that the minor existed at all.

Overall, our principal findings were that the current curriculum were outdated. Moreover,

students showed little interest in the minor and generally prefer simply taking WGS courses

instead of minoring in it.

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We recommend that in order to bring more interest into the WGS minor, we first need to revamp

the minor as well as expand and update the current course selection. Once that is done, we can

move forward with increasing awareness of the minor through advertisement from the professors

and the Humanities department. It is also suggested that the practicality of a WGS minor be

stressed in order to gain further support. A lack of a real-world application of the minor may be

one reason why those interested in the courses are not interested in the minor.

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Research Methods

We began our research by collaborating with Dr. Yonker on how we should conduct our

research. She instructed that we should compare the state of our current WGS program with that

of other schools. She recommended this be accomplished through secondary research online as

well as primary research interviews with staff from the schools. Additionally, she recommended

we interview Dr. Amberg, who co-founded the minor, and Dr. Shusko who is the head of the

minor. Additionally, I independently suggested that we also interview Dr. Taylor as he is Chair

of the English and Humanities Department and likely had useful insight into the minor.

In order to determine the current state of the minor and its desirability, we divided our project

into several tasks:

1. interview the YCP staff related to the WGS minor

2. perform secondary research on the WGS minors found at other schools

3. distribute a survey to the current student body in regards to awareness and interest in the

WGS minor and related courses

4. interview members of the YCP LAMBDA to judge their awareness, desire, and opinions

of the WGS minor

The following discussion contains information on how each task was performed and then

justifies its purpose in our research.

Task 1. Acquire an understanding of the current state of the WGS minor at YCP

After failing to interview Dr. Amberg, we contacted Dr. Taylor, Dr. Carsey, and Dr. Shusko. We

sent them the same set of questions in order to get both male and female opinions on the state of

the minor. Additionally it gave us the general perspective of the head of the department while

also providing the point of view of a professor directly involved with the minor.

The list of questions sent to Dr. Taylor, Dr. Carsey, and Dr. Shusko can be found in Appendix

A: YCP Staff Interview Questions.

Task 2. Determine the state of the WGS minor at other schools

We conducted this task by first looking at the WGS minor courses at YCP. Then we began

researching other colleges online, looking in particular at their WGS course list and analyzing

the number of courses available and the diversity of said courses. We did so to have a standard

on which to compare the current WGS curriculum found at YCP.

Task 3. Develop an understanding of the student awareness and desirability of the WGS minor

at YCP

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We decided to draft a brief, three-question survey to give to verbally administer to YCP students

at random in order to understand the current visibility and desirability of the minor. The survey

was primarily given to students found in the Humanities building as they would be the most

likely to have a WGS minor in the future or at least be interested in it. Additionally, the survey

was kept brief so that responses could be collected and analyzed quickly.

With the survey we were only able to collect 56 results in the given timeframe, but we decided

that would be sufficient in gauging the current student awareness and desire for the minor. We

also realized that we were limited in time and resources because only one student was

administering the survey and we did not want to repeat respondents accidentally.

The survey questions can be found in Appendix B: YCP Student Survey.

Task 4. Determine the awareness, desirability, and opinions of LAMBDA members in regards

to the WGS minor

To interview the students from LAMBDA, we first drafted a list of questions to pose to the

members. The list contained questions very similar to that of the questions asked of Drs. Taylor

and Carsey. We then sent the list to each LAMBDA member and received three responses in

total.

The list of questions sent to LAMBDA members can be found in Appendix C: LAMBDA

Member Questions.

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Results

In this section, we present the results of our research. For each of the tasks we carried out, we

present the most important data we acquired.


Drs. Taylor, Shusko, and Carsey stated that there needs to be some change in the current WGS

minor. Both Dr. Taylor and Dr. Shusko noted that the current WGS minor at YCP needs to be

modified from its original form to fit the interdisciplinary nature of the field of women and

gender studies. Taylor also believed that updating the minor and taking a more interdisciplinary

approach would increase desire in the WGS courses and minor. Carsey and Shusko felt that the

minor has potential for expansion and could update to integrate courses such as those regarding

transgender issues.

Taylor believed that there is interest in the minor in general, but not necessarily the minor in its

current state. He stated that the WGS minor has never had a particularly large amount of students

and thus its population has not changed much. However, Drs. Carsey and Shusko believed that

there is very little interest in the minor and that this is because of a lack of awareness. Shusko

also felt that renaming/rebranding the courses for the minor could increase interest and give

students a better connection to the courses. Finally, Shusko thought that having a web and social

media presence for the minor would be a good avenue for marketing it.


Research of other schools such as Millersville University and Franklin & Marshall College

showed that York College is not up-to-par with other nearby schools in regards to the WGS

courses offered. While York College only offers roughly 14 courses in WGS, both Millersville

and Franklin & Marshall had over double that amount.

To start, they both offered Introductory courses which York College is currently lacking.

Furthermore, Millersville and Franklin & Marshall had a greater diversity of WGS-related

courses and more specified courses. For example, they offered courses such as “Feminist

Theory”, “Gender and the Law”, and “Journalism Through Women’s Perspectives”.


at YCP

Between October 30, 2015 through November 4, 2015 a survey was verbally conducted to

determine the awareness of the minor, the desirability of the WGS minor, and the desirability of

the WGS courses. A total of 56 responses were collected.

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In regards to awareness, only 45% of students were aware of the minor while 55% stated that

they did not even know the minor existed at YCP. Additionally, 55% showed little to no interest

in the minor at all, 39% had low to moderate interest, and only 6% showed higher interest in the

minor. Even in regards to just the WGS courses in general, 43% of students showed little to no

interest at all. Meanwhile, 34% showed lower to moderate interest and 23% showed higher levels

of interest.


to the WGS minor

The interview of the LAMBDA members in regards to the WGS minor revealed that they felt the

minor was rather stagnant in the number of students involved. Also, they felt that students were

interested in Women and Gender Studies because of the number of students looking into and

registering for the courses.

However, they generally felt that something could be done to increase the number of courses

available. One LAMBDA member stated that there were “chronological” gaps in the courses that

they would like to see filled. Another member expressed that they were interested, but did not

think it would benefit their future career. They all generally expressed that it was not as well

advertised as some other minors and that the advertising in general for the course could be

improved.

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Conclusion

In this section, I will present conclusions drawn based on the analyses of the aforementioned

tasks.


Judging based on the responses of Drs. Taylor, Shusko, and Carsey that the minor needs to be

updated. On top of that, the WGS minor needs to be better advertised. Currently, there is little

interest and much stagnation in the program’s population and that is a result of low awareness.

To further advertise, the minor needs to associate itself better with both on and off campus

WGS-related organizations and events while also increasing the perceived applicability of the

minor. Rebranding of the minor courses may also improve interest among students who are

unfamiliar with it.


After researching into the state of the WGS minor available at other schools, I have come to the

conclusion that York College could greatly benefit from updating and especially from expanding

the current curriculum. We are lacking in both the number and variety of courses. Integrating

courses involving more LGBTQ issues such as transgender studies may improve popularity.

Furthermore, the minor could benefit greatly from having an Intro to Women and Gender Studies

course that may promote more students to at least look into the field if they are unfamiliar.


at YCP

Through the survey results my colleagues and I were able to determine that few students were

aware the WGS minor existed let alone had interest for it. This may be because very little

visibility of the minor on campus in comparison to other minors. Thus more advertising needs to

be done to increase the visibility.

Also it should be noted that students showed more interest in the WGS courses, but not the

minor. This may be because students find that other minors would have better real world

applicability or would be more practical. Thus advertising the applicability of the WGS minor

would help increase participation in the program.


to the WGS minor

From the interview questions sent to LAMBDA, my colleagues and I determined that the

students were aware of the WGS minor. However, only one of the three of them showed interest

in the minor. Similar to the general student population, they tended to show more interest in the

courses than the WGS minor itself.

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Because one LAMBDA member cited that they did not think the minor would help with their

career field, promoting the benefits of taking the minor to those already taking the courses may

increase interest. Furthermore, expanding the current curriculum might make it more accessible

to those interested in certain aspects of WGS studies.

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Recommendation

After my research and analysis of the current state of the Women and Gender Studies program

here at York College, I recommend that we take a multifaceted approach in reforming and

increasing awareness and desirability. The minor and its curriculum needs to be revamped. After

all, it does not even have an introductory course of any kind. Having an Introduction to Women

and Gender Studies as an elective course would provide the students with a good starting point to

look into the field of WGS. Moreover, it would allow them the opportunity to look into the

minor and learn more about it and the real world applicability of it without pressuring them to

commit to it necessarily which would improve desirability.

Furthermore, we need to expand the current curriculum to meet the interests of the students.

Currently, students take the courses, but they do not involve themselves fully in the minor. By

increasing the number of courses available and the diversity of them, this could motivate

students to enter the minor because of the higher desirability in the courses themselves. Also,

rebranding or renaming the current courses to something that may resonate better with students

would motivate them to look into the courses.

Finally, the WGS minor needs to be advertised considerably better. Considering most students

had not even heard the minor existed, it could benefit from even minimal, low-cost advertising.

For example, advertising through word of mouth of the students and professors could help. It

could also benefit from more of a web and social media presence that would be more likely to be

seen by students today. Moreover, the applicability of the minor should be more visible in the

advertising. Students would be more inclined to enter the minor if career applicability and other

more tangible benefits were to be associated with the minor.

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References

"WGSS Curriculum and Courses." Franklin & Marshall. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

<http://www.fandm.edu/wgs/courses>.

"Women's and Gender Studies Minor." York College of Pennylvania. York College of

Pennsylvania. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.

"Women's Studies." Millersville University Undergraduate Catalog 2015-2016. 2015. 238-240.

Print. <http://www.millersville.edu/catalogs/undergraduate/index.pdf>.

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Appendix A: YCP Staff Interview Questions

The following is the the list of questions posed to Dr. Taylor and Dr. Carsey regarding the

Women and Gender Studies minor at YCP.

Women and Gender Studies Questions

How do you feel York’s Women and Gender Studies Minor program compares to others in the

area? In the country?

Have you noticed an increase, decline, or stagnation in our program size?

Do you think students are interested in the WGS Minor program? Why or why not?

There are currently only three WGS Minors, why do you think that is? How does that make you

feel about the state of the Minor Program?

How do you think we might be lacking in our Women and Gender Studies Minor/Courses?

What would you like to see done with our program? What direction would like it to take?

Do you think students are aware that this minor is available? How would you recommend we

increase awareness of the minor?

Do you think some of the courses should be added to the general education curriculum?

How do you think taking this minor could be applicable in everyday life? The job market?

How could the minor affiliate itself with other student programs or events on campus? How

could it affiliate itself with organizations or programs in the area?

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Appendix B: YCP Student Survey

This is the survey that was distributed to 56 York College students in regards to the WGS Minor.

1. Were you aware that there was a Women and Gender Studies Minor available at YCP?

2. On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being least desired and 5 being very desired), how interested

are you in a WGS Minor?

3. On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being the uninterested and 5 being very interested), how

interested are you in WGS courses in general (not necessarily the minor)?

Awareness of Students of the WGS Minor

Awareness of Students

Number of Students Percentage of Students

Aware 25 45%

Unaware 31 55%

Desirability of WGS Minor (1 Being Least Desire and 5 Being Most Desire)

Desirability


1 31 55%

2 13 23%

3 9 16%

4 3 6%

5 0 0%

Desirability of WGS Courses in General (1 Being Least Desire and 5 Being Most Desire)

Desirability


1 24 43%

2 10 18%

3 9 16%

4 4 7%

5 9 16%

Appendix C: LAMBDA Member Questions

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The following is the list of questions posed to members of the YCP group LAMBDA.

1. How do you feel York’s program compares to others in the area? In general? 2. Have you noticed an increase, decline, or stagnation in our program? 3. Do you think students are interested in the program? Why or why not?

4. Are our courses up to date with the field of women and gender studies? 5. What would you like to see done with our program? What direction would like it to take? 6. Did you know that York College offers a Women and Gender Studies minor?

7. Do you think students are aware that this minor is available?

8. --How can we increase awareness? 9. Do you think the course should be added to the general education curriculum? 10. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being least interested, 5 being most interested), how interested are you

in the Women and Gender Studies minor? 11. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being least interested, 5 being most interested), how interested are you in taking a Women and Gender Studies course?

WGS Recommendation Report

Documents

Transcript of WGS Recommendation Report