Women’s studies to lose departmental status at Towson University

By Theresa Pratt, Deputy News Editor

Towson University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is restructuring from a department to a program amid low major enrollment. It will be housed under another field of study with other programs starting in Fall 2026.

Students are still able to major and minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and no faculty are being dismissed, according to Provost Melanie Perrault. She said the academic program itself is not changing, women’s studies just won’t have its own department chair anymore or carry out the administrative tasks departments are usually charged with.

Current Department Chair Cindy Gissendanner is one of three faculty members in the women’s studies department. She said women’s studies will be absorbed into Interdisciplinary Programs, which is under the College of Liberal Arts. The Interdisciplinary Program oversees other low-enrollment majors like International Studies, African and African-American Studies and Metropolitan Studies, to name a few. 

“We have a substantial number of minors, but the university is most concerned about the number of majors,” Gissendanner said.

The department only has 11 majors registered for Fall 2025, according to data The Towerlight obtained. Its highest recorded majors as a department was in 2018 when it had 38 majors. Gissendanner said she learned about the department’s possible restructuring in August of 2023, that fall the department had eight enrolled majors.

“We don’t really feel that the number of majors is the total picture in terms of our value to the university, because we have been extensively involved in teaching core courses,” Gissendanner said. “We feel like we do our part in terms of educating students around issues of women, you know, women, gender equality, LGBTQ studies, to a broader audience than just majors.”

Towson’s gender studies program is one of the oldest in the country, spanning more than 40 years. Courses were offered on the topic in the early 1970s and the program was officially established in 1973. It became a full department in 2002. 

Emily Parker is a Philosophy and Religious Studies professor, but teaches several women’s department classes. She was initially concerned about her colleagues in the department before it was confirmed they would all stay on, and what would happen to the classes she taught in the subject.

“They will be offered,” Parker said about the women’s studies classes. “Students’ diplomas will still say Women’s and Gender Studies.”

Gissendanner was hired to teach history in 1984 and said that Towson’s gender studies program was a major leader in the space. 

“Even though it doesn’t mean the end of the program,” she said. “It still sort of feels like a step back to lose departmental status.”

Sarah Sternhagen contributed to this article by obtaining data from the Office of Institutional Research.