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Important news!
Tonia St. Germain is taking her sabbatical Winter and Spring term and will not be on campus. Gender Studies classes will be offered on line for Winter term, and Erin Rider is teaching classes for Spring term. We will miss you Tonia!! Although not on campus, Professor St. Germain will be in touch with her students via email.

Erin Rider is a doctoral student at Texas Woman’s University (TWU) who will be Professor St. Germain’s sabbatical replacement instructor for the spring quarter at EOU. Before coming to EOU as a visiting instructor, Erin earned a M.A. in Women’s Studies at TWU in addition to having earned a B.A. in English and minor in Gender Studies from EOU. Erin’s scholarship focuses on reducing sexual assault on college campuses and examining the marginalization of refugees of sexual violence in war conditions and asylum processes. Her general theoretical and research interests concentrate on addressing the agency process of marginalized individuals constituted by oppressive systems on the basis of gender, race, class, and sexuality.
As a student in the doctoral Sociology Program at TWU, she has taught a course on Social Problems and has assisted with research projects on police officer’s family and work roles in disasters, and faith-based organizations’ disaster response and shelter operations. In addition, she actively participates with Project REV (a program funded by the Department of Justice at TWU) in developing and presenting seminars on consent in dating relationships and bystander intervention. She is currently in the process of formulating a theory of action that can account for the complex interactions between perpetrators, bystanders, and victims in sexual assault situations.
Mission Statement:
The Gender Studies Program is a multidisciplinary community of scholars committed to a transformative analysis of gender as it intersects with social class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, age, and nationality. In our research and our work with students, we treat gender as both an important category of analysis and a powerful social structure that profoundly shapes our human experience. Through innovative and collaborative teaching, scholarship, and service, our program promotes new knowledge and socially responsible activism. A strong and viable Gender Studies Program is essential to the mission of EOU in educating global citizens prepared to live and work in a diverse and increasingly interconnected world.
Purpose:
The Gender Studies Program provides its students with an ability to assess the gendered dimensions of their past, their intrapersonal and social interactions, the groups and institutions of which they are a part, the literature they read, the print and electronic communications they receive, the scientific evidence on which they rely, and the cultures and subcultures in which they participate. We seek to develop in our students a "gender-sensitive perspective" that will enable them to bring to their other courses, and to their life outside the university, the kinds of critical questions essential to imagining--and working to create—an inclusive and more equitable human community.
With a gender sensitive perspective, students will be able to bring to their other courses--and their lives outside the university--the kinds of critical questions essential to imagining and working to create an inclusive and more equitable community.
Through our unique distance education program, EOU students may minor in Gender Studies on campus, or obtain a Liberal Studies Degree with an emphasis on Gender Studies and Business Administration.




Often as a component of an EOU service learning course, or as volunteers at the Women's Research and Resource Center, G.S. students work to host a variety of campus speakers (and events) througout the year; some past speakers include author Inga Muscio, (see photo) who wrote CUNT: a declaration of independance, and authors Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner, (see photo in header) who co-wrote MANIFESTA: young women, feminism, and the future.
Visit the EOU SAGE- Women's Research and Resource Center for event listings, or call at 541-962-3021 for information on how you can become involved in continuing feminist inquiry at EOU!
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Gender Studies minor at Eastern Oregon University
Tonia St.Germain, J.D.,
Assistant Professor/Program Coordinator,
Gender Studies Program,
Tele: (541) 962-3003,
E-Mail: Gender Studies.
Eastern Oregon University is a member of the Oregon University System