Four Words, One Timeline, and a Lesson in Student Advocacy

Several students at Elmira College recently learned their power to effect change. Through their advocacy, EC changed the title of its Women’s Studies minor to Women’s and Gender Studies.

The difference in the program title may seem subtle, but the students wanted the program to better reflect the history of women’s studies programs and the topics they want to learn about.

The issue came up during the Fall Term in Annaliese Hoehling’s WMS 1000 course.

“It became a matter of aligning the name of the minor with the way people discussed the program on campus, and aligning it with what they felt, in this particular class, was a more accurate description of the courses and program,” explained Hoehling, Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Academic Writing Program.

The students felt strongly enough about the importance of the program’s name that they petitioned to make the change official.

Since the name-change required faculty approval, Martha Easton, Associate Professor of Sociology, Social and Behavioral Sciences Chair, submitted the request.

Even before the name change received formal approval, the students wanted to position the change in context to other historical moments in the field of women’s and gender studies.

So, when Hoehling asked the students to update a bulletin board as a final project for the course, her students created a timeline showing some of the history and development of women’s studies programs and disciplines in the United States. At the bottom of the timeline is an entry that says, “Today: Elmira College is changing the name of the minor from Women’s Studies to Women’s and Gender Studies.”

Liv Rubin ’27, a Criminal Justice major with a concentration in Legal Studies and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, was among the students to put the timeline together.

“This bulletin board project is significant to me because it showcases the rich history and continual progress of women’s and gender studies programs in America, ultimately leading up to EC’s very own program,” shared Rubin. “We formatted the bulletin board as a timeline for a reason; we wanted to highlight important moments of progress within this field and pay homage to those who have done significant work in advancing women’s rights in academia.”

Rubin said that knowing the history honors the investments made by earlier generations, while reminding her that she is not alone in her activism.

“I immediately felt more connected to the EC community when learning about the history of the Women’s Studies program here,” she said. “This history is a reminder of how far we have come and provides hope that progress will continue to be made.”

In changing the program title, Hoehling's students did something generations of women's studies advocates would recognize. They saw a gap between what something was called and what it actually meant. And then they did something about it.