Ph.D. Program

A students' primary advisor is the faculty member who works with them as they progress through their degree, from initial coursework through dissertation research and preparation for their career after graduation. Applicants do not enter the program with an assigned advisor. The Director of Graduate Studies advises all graduate students from admission until a permanent advisor is decided (generally in year 2). Students may ask a faculty member to be their advisor at any time, but they must select a permanent advisor by the spring of their second year.

Most students have one advisor, though a co-advising relationship with two faculty members is also possible. Students must have one advisor within the department until they receive ABD status, at which point they are no longer required to have an advisor within the WGSS core faculty.  Advisor(s) must be a full member of the UMD Graduate Faculty.

The WGSS PhD consists of a minimum of 54 total credits broken up as described below. All required coursework is completed prior to Advancement to Candidacy.

• 9 credits of foundation courses - WGSS 601 and 602 are taken in year 1 and WGSS 708 is taken in year 2. 
• 18 credits of elective coursework
  • WGSS Core Faculty Coursework - A minimum of 12 credits (4 courses) must be taken with Faculty in the Harriet Tubman Department
  • External Electives - A minimum of 6 credits (2 courses) taken with faculty outside of the department 
• WGSS 619 Teaching Practicum - WGSS 619 is a 1 credit course taken each semester a student serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant or Instructor of Record in the Harriet Tubman Department.
• 6 additional credits from any of the following, as approved by your advisor and the DGS: WGSS Core Faculty Coursework, External Electives, WGSS 619, WGSS 699 Independent Study, or additional WGSS Research Credits.

Research Credits

UMD requires that students be continually registered while pursuing doctoral study. Prior to advancement to candidacy and after completion of all or most coursework students enroll in WGSS 709: Directed Independent Reading for Major Fields. The program requires 6 credits (minimum) of WGSS 709 but it can be taken for up to 12 credits (max). Students who have taken 12 credits of WGSS 709 and have not advanced to candidacy will register for WGSS 898: Pre-Candidacy Research. 

After advancement to candidacy, the Registrar’s Office will register students who are in good academic standing for 6 credits of WGSS 899 Dissertation Research each Fall and Spring until program completion. The Graduate School requires a minimum of 12 credits of WGSS 899 to graduate.

WGSS 601: Theoretical Foundations in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
First semester; 3 credits

Examines fundamental concepts in the interdisciplinary field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Engages intersectionality as a critical analytic and set of responses to structural power and domination. Provides students with a theoretical foundation for understanding gender, race, and sexuality as analytic categories operating in transnational and global contexts and intersecting with other categories of difference.

WGSS 602: Methodologies and Epistemologies in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Second semester; 3 credits

Examines the politics and practice of knowledge production in the interdisciplinary field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Explores how theory is connected to the formation of raced/gendered/sexed bodies, subjectivities, and existences that unsettle Eurocentric genealogies of disciplinary knowledge formation. Introduces students to methodological and epistemological frameworks for attending to the impact of relations of power and domination on how research and scholarship are created and defined within and across disciplinary boundaries, cultures, and paradigms.

WGSS 708: Research Seminar in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Second year, 3 credits

In addition to their required coursework, all students must complete five benchmarks to receive the PhD. 

1. Portfolio Review (year 2)
2. Major Fields  (last benchmark for advancement)
3. Dissertation Prospectus (due within 6 months of advancement to candidacy)
4. Dissertation

Advancement to Candidacy occurs after all coursework requirements and benchmarks 1 and 2 are completed. This often occurs in the second semester of year 3 or first semester of year 4. The Graduate School requires Advancement within 5 years of enrolling in the program. 

1) Portfolio Review 

The goal of this benchmark is to ensure students engage with the broad range of WGSS scholarship and provide them with early feedback on their progress in the program. Completion of Portfolio Review, along with all required coursework, enables students to apply for a Master’s degree (non-thesis option) if they so wish. WGSS does not accept students directly to the MA, so this is the only way to obtain a Master’s in WGSS from UMD.

2) Major Fields

The Major Fields benchmark marks your movement from student, following a path set out for you by others, into independent research, where you map out and pursue the unique trajectory you will follow in your career as a scholar. This benchmark requires you to delve deeply into interdisciplinary perspectives in your field of specialization and build competency in the methodologies and approaches you will employ in your dissertation. It provides you with the opportunity to build your scholarly networks and craft your professional identity as a scholar. This benchmark is equivalent to the “comprehensive exams” taken by students in disciplinary fields, and the areas of knowledge you develop at this time will be those you anticipate as your future areas of teaching and research expertise.

3) Dissertation Prospectus 

The prospectus is prepared under the supervision of the dissertation chair and in consultation with your dissertation committee, which you will assemble at this stage. Before you proceed to writing the dissertation itself, you must defend your dissertation prospectus in a formal meeting with your committee. The prospectus defense is necessary to ensure that you have an opportunity to discuss your research plans in depth, and to make sure that they are of an appropriate scope and workability for a dissertation project, before you embark on research and writing in earnest. 

4) Dissertation

The culmination of your doctoral work is your dissertation, which makes an original, significant contribution to the interdisciplinary field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The department expects that the format or structure of each dissertation will be determined in consultation between the student, the dissertation director, and the dissertation committee. However, it may be useful to know that dissertations depend on extensive primary or original research; are typically 200 or more pages in length; and are expected to situate their interventions within a deep citational context. WGSS welcomes dissertations that incorporate a creative or technical element, but we expect such elements to be presented within a scholarly infrastructure that clarifies their relationship to WGSS as an academic field.

This timeline shows how a student moving through the program would typically complete requirements. Individual pathways through the program may vary for any number of reasons. 

The WGSS Colloquium is a non-credit series of professionalization workshops and events for WGSS graduate students organized by the DGS and generally held once or twice a month. The colloquium is always scheduled on Wednesday nights (usually 4:30 - 6pm or 5pm to 6:30pm). In a given year it might include works in progress presentations from students or faculty, workshops on funding and grant applications, guest speakers from across campus, CV development, or publication workshops. Students are required to attend and participate in all colloquium events throughout years 1 - 3 and it is considered part of satisfactory progress in the department.

The department also organizes a variety of events for the broader WGSS community including Harriet Tubman Day, DC Queer Studies, presentations by WGSS Affiliate Faculty, and book talks for department faculty, and other invited guest speaker events. Graduate students are expected to attend the majority of departmental events and these may be considered part of the colloquium attendance requirement for pre-candidacy students.

Courses not already approved for use as External Electives can be included in WGSS Graduate Programs (PhD, MA, and Certificate) with the approval of the students advisor and the DGS. This approval should be shared in writing with the CGS at registration for inclusion in the students record.

Approved External Electives List - Approved August 26, 2026

The Harriet Tubman Department does not control the scheduling of the following courses and they may be canceled or removed from course rotations at any time by their home department. 

New courses can be added to the approved external electives list after a review by the Graduate Committee at a student or faculty member's request. The DGS or committee could also automatically review courses  after two WGSS PhD students are approved by their advisor to use the course.