Texas Woman’s University in Denton was founded in 1901 as the Girls Industrial College. It took on its current name in 1957. The university maintained its name in 1972 despite becoming a co-educational institution. Today, women make up 87 percent of the undergraduate student body.
The multicultural women’s and gender studies program at Texas Woman’s University has offered a master’s degree and a doctoral degree program as well as a graduate certificate and an undergraduate minor. Now, pending an expected approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Texas Woman’s University will have a new bachelor’s degree in gender studies. The program will offer a bachelor’s degree with three possible study tracks: general studies, health, and community leadership.
The new program will be under the direction of Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, an associate professor of English and women’s and gender studies. “Students can find a focus in the program for a lot of different careers,” Dr. Phillips-Cunningham said. “Students who want to be academic professors can study under this new degree. Students who are interested in leading public health policy can study it. And it’s also for students who want to go into nonprofits with social justice focuses: reproductive rights, voter suppression, women’s health care.”
Dr. Phillios-Cunningham is the author of Putting Their Hands on Race: Irish Immigrant and Southern Black Domestic Workers (Rutgers University Press, 2019). She is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta and holds a Ph.D. in women’s and gender studies from Rutgers University in New Jersey.