Certificate Application Form

Certificate Completion Form

The Women Studies Department has offered a graduate certificate internally for the past seventeen years. Beginning in Fall Quarter, 2009 this certificate will be officially recognized by the Graduate School, and will record on a recipient’s transcript.  In 1992, the Department of Women Studies at UW (then, still a Program) offered a graduate certificate in order to recognize substantial women studies coursework completed by students matriculating through graduate programs at the University of Washington.  At that time, the university had not yet established official graduate certificates.  Students from graduate and professional programs all over campus have sought out this training as a way to document their advanced knowledge and skills in the interdisciplinary field of women’s studies. Now that a mechanism for the establishment of official certificates is in place, the Department of Women Studies requests approval of the Women Studies Graduate Certificate from the Graduate School at UW.

 The goal of the certificate program is to enable graduate and professional students from across the University of Washington (including the branch campuses) to acquire skills and competencies in three general areas:

1. Scope and history of Feminist, Women’s and Gender Studies

2. Interdisciplinary feminist theory 

3. Competence in feminist methods in a specific field

The purpose of this certificate is to provide foundational understanding of feminist theory and analysis for graduate and professional students in programs outside of Women Studies.  The Women Studies Certificate is a graduate-level program providing students in graduate and professional programs across the University of Washington the opportunity to integrate gender, women’s, and feminist studies with coursework in their respective disciplines/departments.  This program, since its inception in 1992 as an internal certificate program, has provided a unique opportunity to develop knowledge in historical and contemporary approaches to the advanced study of gender, women’s, and feminist from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

1. Selection of a certificate advisor, preferably a Women Studies core faculty member, although an adjunct faculty member can be selected in some cases. The advisor works with the student to select appropriate coursework.  The faculty advisor and the department chair give final approval of the certificate once the student completes the coursework.

2. Complete the Women Studies Certificate application form, have it signed by your WS Certificate Advisor, and turn in to the Graduate Program Advisor in Padelford B110

3. Completion of the three quarter sequence of core graduate courses in Women Studies (WOMEN 501, 502 and 503).  (5 credits each for 15 credits total)

4. Completion of at least two other 400 or 500 level courses related to Women Studies (total: 10 credits minimum). Courses at the 400 or 500 level from within the student's home department with heavy emphasis on feminist analysis are eligible. Women Studies graduate students are not eligible for the certificate and there is a maximum overlap of 6 credits between a student’s degree program and the certificate program.  According to graduate certificate guidelines these 6 credits must be electives in each program.  Independent study course work will not satisfy this requirement, and courses must be taken for a grade or C/NC, not S/NS. Courses must be approved by the student’s certificate advisor.

5. Certificate students will be required to complete a 1-credit capstone course.  Students will write a 5000-word essay in which they develop a framework that ties together two papers they wrote for any two of their required courses, re-write or re-submit two essays from those courses, and reflect on what they have learned from the Grad Certificate and how it has changed/impacted their thinking/career.

WOMEN 501 History of Feminism (5cr) Study of feminism from the 18th through the 20th centuries in the national, international, and intranational world system, with a focus on imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, and modernity. Surveys the literature in a global context, supplemented by critical essays and historiographic reviews.

WOMEN 502 Problems in Feminist Theory (5 cr)
Raises questions about how feminism becomes theory and what the relation of feminist theory is to conventional disciplines. Readings exemplify current crises in feminism (e.g., the emergence of neo-materialism; critical race theory; citizenship; identity; transnational and MIGRANCY and questions of post-colonialism) to consider disciplinization.

WOMEN 503 Feminist Research and Methods of Inquiry (5 cr)
Explores appropriate research methodologies for interdisciplinary work. Asks how scholarship is related to feminism as a social movement and to the institutions in which we work. Focuses on how similar objects of study are constituted in different disciplines for feminist scholars.

Admission Process

Any matriculating student in a graduate or professional program of the University of Washington is eligible to work toward the certificate.  Students need to declare their intent to work toward the certificate to the Graduate Program Advisor of Women Studies indicating the name and approval of their certificate advisor (defined above). The Graduate Program Advisor will then forward the name of the student and advisor to the Graduate Program Director for final approval.

Admission Standards:

Any graduate or professional student at the University of Washington is eligible to work toward this certificate.   Admission requirements are as follows:

• A completed Graduate Certificate Program application form that includes demographic data, education history and current status as a UW graduate student.

• A typed 1-page statement of purpose, which includes reasons for pursuing a certificate and how the Graduate Certificate in Women Studies will contribute to the student's career goals.

• Identification of a certificate advisor chosen from among the affiliate faculty, with a written commitment from the advisor (signature on application form).

• C.V.

Minimum Standards for Successful Completion of the Certificate Program:

A minimum grade of 3.0 is required in each course taken toward the certificate.

The Graduate Certificate is intended to facilitate and acknowledge intensive scholarship in an area of Women Studies. It will not provide student with an additional accredited degree. To sign up for the certificate program, see Elaine Haig-Widner in the Women Studies office, B110 Padelford.