The Ethnic and Women's Studies Department promotes interdisciplinary study, research, learning, and teaching about the many groups of people in society who are socially and/or self identified through the constructs of ethnicity, culture, class, race, religion, nationality, affectional/sexual orientation and gender. The department gives central consideration to topics of advocacy, aesthetic expression, culture, diversity, history, identity, ideology, power, public policy, social organization, stratification, and worldview, and to the processes by which students can become personally and professionally engaged with them.
Understanding the intersections, practice and effects of class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion, and sex is imperative for learning to live in a modern, multicultural, diversified society. The department prepares students to manage, nurture and shape such a society, through critical understanding, leadership and responsible action. The EWS department promotes technology as a social tool to empower those who we serve. Technology is an instrument for social change and a means to advance progressive models for the restructuring of society. The department emphasizes the interrelationships between various fields of study and takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to understanding U.S. social reality, with an emphasis on the experiences of women and members of ethnic/racial groups.
The EWS Faculty demonstrate excellence in teaching, enhance their skill in the development and evaluation of educational programs, promote alternative models of learning, and contribute professionally to agencies and institutions in the greater community. They are encouraged to serve as advocates to their professions and communities in significant ways that will advance the civic goals of all humankind and the rights of all people. They have the ability to reinvent and restructure institutional procedures and educational programs by implementing effective new approaches and techniques to serve all people. As innovative and sensitive agents of changes, EWS faculties address the varied issues and problems facing the teaching profession, as well as the diverse needs of California, the United States, and the global village. In this regard, the EWS Department promotes the value of community partnerships and service learning by establishing relationships with K-12 schools, community college, UC campuses, parent and youth groups, progressive unions, civil rights associations, women’s groups, business associations, family services, and political and elected officials.
