Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) at Texas Tech is an expansive program educating students inside and outside the classroom, serving as a resource for Texas Tech University and West Texas, and leading through multiple collaborations with diverse groups and units since 1981. Founded with modest beginnings at the urging of two Texas Tech students, the program now boasts hundreds of students and alumni. We offer a Women’s and Gender Studies undergraduate minor and a Women’s and Gender Studies graduate certificate and minor. We attract and empower a diverse student body, with more than 60% of our minors identifying as BIPOC, including 40% of our students identifying as Hispanic, exceeding the percentages of BIPOC and Hispanic students enrolled at the university overall.

Since its inception, Women’s & Gender Studies at Texas Tech has offered more than a thousand educational outreach events, including the Annual Fall Gender and Sexuality Identities Colloquium and the Annual Spring All-University Conference for the Advancement of Women in Higher Education. Our Women’s and Gender Studies program has the distinction of hosting the longest continuous all-university conference at Texas Tech University. At our conferences, we hosted national icons such as Milly Treviño-Sauceda, leader of the Women of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, the Latina Farmworker organization that inspired Hollywood’s Time’s Up initiative (see: 700,000 Female Farmworkers Stand Up Against Sexual Assault | Time) and most recently, hosted Dr. Jillian Hernandez, who spoke about her recent book, Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment. Her work analyzes the clothing, makeup, and hairstyles of working-class Black and Latina girls. Additionally, at our Fall Gender and Sexual Identities Colloquium, we featured Dr. Julio Capó Jr., whose keynote was entitled, “Undesirables: A Queer History of LatinX Challenges to US Immigration Policy. This semester, we will be screening and discussing the film “Project Enye,” which captures a sense of not-belonging and loss of histories through familial and/or migration experiences that our Hispanic students and other under-represented and under-served communities often experience. Moreover, several of our undergraduate students will be sharing their autohistoria‐teoría at our annual conference. We also host events (e.g., Café Con Leche) focusing on Hispanic students, staff, faculty and community members.

In alignment with Texas Tech’s status as a Hispanic Serving Institution, Women’s and Gender Studies offer several courses focusing on Hispanic/LatinX culture, including “Beyond J. Lo & Frida Kahlo: Latina Feminisms (undergraduate and graduate), Witches, Bruxas, and Black Magic (undergraduate and graduate), Women of Color Feminisms, and Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies: Latin@/X Culture in the United States. We also work closely with the Chicana/x Latina/X Working Group at Texas Tech. The purpose of the Chicana/x Latina/x Working Group is to engage in dialog about the influence of Chicana Feminist and Latina Thought and Theory in the new millennium. The group was founded and directed by one of our current Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Students, Esther Medina De León. Our Women’s and Gender Studies faculty have also recently presented at the Gloria Anzaldúa El Mundo Zurdo Conference.

As we tried to demonstrate in this brief profile, Women’s and Gender Studies at Texas Tech is very proud of the Hispanic Serving Institution designation and we hope to prepare all our students for a bright and fulfilling future. In the words of the Texas Tech mantra: “Desde aquí, ¡es posible!” 

About the authors:

Elizabeth Sharp, PhD is the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies and Professor in Human Development & Family Sciences at Texas Tech University. She is the former Interim Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Dr. Sharp was the recipient of the Texas Tech Hispanic Student Society Award for Outstanding Support and Dedication Award as well as the student-initiated award entitled, Phenomenal Women of Texas Tech.

Brandy Piña-Watson is the Associate Director of Women’s & Gender Studies and Associate Professor in Psychological Sciences at Texas Tech University. Dr. Piña-Watson directs the Latinx Mental Health & Resiliency lab at Texas Tech and has been the recipient of several awards including Hispanic Association of Women’s Hispana Inspiradora Award and the Distinguished Early Career Award from the National Latinx Psychological Association.