Alumni & Community

The students who graduate from Michigan with an undergraduate degree or minor in Women’s Studies, a PhD from one of the four joint programs, or a Certificate in Women’s Studies or LGBTQ Studies remain an important part of our community even as they become important contributors to the life of towns and countries around the world. Several of those students have returned to teach in the Department; two now hold unbudgeted faculty positions with us.

Each year former students return to talk about their experiences as health care providers, community activists, teachers, grant writers, and lawyers on a panel about career opportunities for Women’s Studies students. Our undergraduate concentrators speak of the value of conversations they’ve had with alumnae across the country as they consider their own future academic and professional plans.

Members in our Michigan Women’s Studies community are also people who didn’t graduate with a Women’s Studies degree but to whom feminist concerns—gender and health, LGBTQ studies, global feminism, women and economics, women’s rights in the workplace, women and poverty, sexuality studies—are an important part of their professional and personal lives. These women and men support the activities of the Department by providing advice to the Chair and faculty, and providing much-appreciated financial support for student and faculty research, intellectual activities, and social events.