Honors Program Update

08 February 2017

In mid-January, media reports revealed that the Faculty of Arts was suspending admission to several low-enrolment Honors programs, including the BA with Honors in Women's and Gender Studies. Immediately following the announcement, the department submitted a letter to the dean's office that urged her to reconsider. We're happy to announce that her decision has been reversed and we will continue to accept students into the honors program.

In the process of defending this program, we discovered how very valuable it is to our students, our department, and to the faculty of arts overall.

Each year, honors students work with a faculty advisor to prepare an undergraduate honors thesis on a topic that they develop independently. These students share their research every year at a public presentation of honors work. This year, students Maura Roberts and Alyssa Pretty will present the work of their honors theses on May 2nd at 2pm in the Senate Chambers. All are welcome!

BA Honors graduates have gone on to successful careers in law, government, and the non-profit sector:
  • Aliesha Hart, who earned a Combined Honors degree in WGS and Art History in 2014, now works at Inclusion Alberta.
  • 2014 grad Kylie Burton has recently finished coursework in the Faculty of Education and will embark on a teaching career in the Fall.
  • 2016 graduate Emily Dutton holds a leadership position at The Landing and has made, through this work, an enormous impact on trans and queer communities on campus.

Recent graduates of the Honors program have been well positioned and well prepared for advanced study in WGS and related fields.
  • 2013 honors graduate Brenna Ward entered a graduate program in Communication and Media Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.
  • 2014 graduates Roxanne Runyon and Brett Willes were both accepted into the MA program in Gender Studies at Queens.
  • 2015 graduate Danielle Normandeau entered a graduate program in WGS at Carleton this fall.

Impressively, all four of these Honors WGS graduates were the recipients of SSHRC awards. Upon graduation from our program, they were all in the position to choose between several offers of admission, and they were awarded, in addition to SSHRC, departmental and provincial awards.

Other Honors graduates from our program are completing or have recently completed doctoral degrees.
  • Samantha Balzer is a SSHRC funded doctoral student in the department of English at the U of Alberta
  • Dr Ela Przybylo, who holds a doctorate from York University, is currently a SSHRC- funded postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona.