Higher Education and the Precarity of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Programs

This article presents findings from our 2018 survey of over 331 institutions about the factors that impact Women's, Gender, and Sexuality programs and challenge their survival. Across the United States, significant changes have affected not just the stability of WGS programs, but their very existence. WGS academic programs are experiencing extreme precarity based on several factors: reductions in state funding for education; the rise of political conservatism/authoritarianism globally, and increased mistrust of liberal arts locally. These external factors have caused WGS Programs to be redefined, merged with other programs, or cut altogether. The onset of the pandemic intensified all these factors exponentially and is exacerbated by the interdisciplinarity of the field, the reliance on personality in leadership, and the lack of resources. We hope this article, in conversation with the brief data that NWSA gathered in 2020, will illuminate the challenges and pose some solutions.