The students have spoken.

Growing demand has lead to the creation of a new major and minor in women’s, gender and sexuality studies (WGSS), available to students this year.

Previously, the program solely offered a minor in women’s studies.

Although many courses will still center on women’s experiences, the program introduces themes of gender analysis and the ways in which some sexualities are considered normative and others non-normative.

It’s important to understand the role that gender and sexuality play in shaping a person’s life, according to an email from Tammy Birk, women’s, gender and sexuality studies program director.

“We definitely want our students to feel liberated to think more creatively and expansively in our courses,” Birk said. “Even if they can’t think like that anywhere else in their lives, we want our students to feel challenged and excited by the courses in our program.”

In 1983, Otterbein began to allow its students to take women’s studies as a minor. Students’ interest in developing this into a major started in 2002.

Since then, 11 students individualized their major either in women’s studies or women’s, gender and sexuality studies.

“This convinced us that there was a growing student interest in a major program of study, and we needed to figure out a way to make that happen here.” Birk said.

While the major is 40 credit hours to obtain, the minor is only 20.

Students finding it difficult to squeeze time into schedules can receive credits through integrative studies (INST) classes.

Birk said it’s possible to meet some INST requirements while working on a WGSS major, as some INST courses cover gender and sexuality.

This overlap has allowed some students with already full schedules to pick up an additional minor.

“I just kind of came into this by accident … I had some classes that counted toward the minor and so I thought, ‘Oh, what the hey, I’ll add it,’” said Becky Woodruff, a senior majoring in theatre, creative writing and literary studies who is taking up a minor in WGSS.

Birk said her students have gone on to many different kinds of work in the world, including social work, counseling, student affairs, teaching, politics, law school and community health work with women, girls and LGBT.

Hannah Farver is a senior who is double majoring in nursing and WGSS. She said that she hopes this will help her in the job market.

“I wanted a (major) to help make me different from all the others,” she said.

The only male in his feminist theory class of 22 students, senior philosophy and political science major Vinny Sanfillipo said that he believes the program will be good for Otterbein, including men, because it allows them to look at things through different perspectives.

“So everything you’d normally consider like history, politics, philosophy, everything has a feminist perspective to look through it,” Sanfillipo said. “It all affects different things in different ways and it’s really interesting to see how things correlate.”

This program, Birk said, is aimed at making students more open-minded.

“Although it may not affect your professional life, it will definitely impact your personal life,” she said.

“Those courses were the ones that changed my own life as an undergraduate, and I can promise you that the faculty who teach in WGSS want to create courses that do the same for Otterbein’s students,” Birk said. “Sometimes I wish that I could require our courses for every undergraduate, but it’s probably best that you find us on your own. That way, we get to choose each other, and that is the best possible feeling.”