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• graduate program application form (Contact graduate program for form.)
• official transcripts of current graduate course work to date
• letter of interest (Indicate reasons for applying to this program as well as long-term personal, professional and political goals.)
• letter(s) of recommendation (Either one letter from a faculty of the UHM-WS program or three letters from other references.)

The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM) offers a graduate certificate program in advanced women's studies. The program provides a rigorous, integrated and relevant educational experience for students whose educational and career objectives will be enhanced through creative and scholarly feminist analysis of women's lives and visions. The objectives of the program are as follows:

• to examine the factors that affect the status of women across cultures and through time,
• to analyze theories and assumptions about women in various disciplines,
• to contribute to the reformulation of social knowledge,
• to explore institutionalizing social change that highlights and supports the achievements of women locally and internationally, and
• to understand the usefulness of gender as an analytical tool in many disciplines.

Students enrolled in the program learn to apply feminist methodologies, analysis and problem-solving to their chosen academic fields. They also learn to integrate the rigors of the scholarship on gender into their chosen professions, as a means of enhancing their professional lives and opportunities for advancement.

The certificate program focuses on four areas under the general rubric of gender studies:

Feminist methods of inquiry and theoretical analysis
Students explore sex/gender as an analytical category. They examine issues such as what this category means; what purposes are served by the prevailing binary notions of gender; and how gender is constituted in social, biological, cultural, and economic contexts; in the past, present and future.

Feminist knowledge
Students learn about the pervasive impact of gender relations on thoughts, actions, and prevailing constructions of reality. They also become acquainted with an array of feminist theories and arguments about issues such as political action, reproduction, and sexual orientation.

Sex/gender and social-political categories of power and privilege
Students examine the interaction of sex/gender with race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and other primary vectors of power and privilege as relevant to nearly all aspects of human experience. They explore the dynamics of such interactions, with emphasis on the evolving multicultural milieu of Hawai'i and the Asia/Pacific region.

Sources of sex/gender differences
Students examine both the empirical and philosophical debates concerning sameness and difference as related to the topic of gender. They consider the sources of gender/sex differences as well as the resulting significance.

This certificate program requires 18 credits.

Students will be required to complete a research and/or community involvement project that culminates in a publishable scholarly work and a professional seminar presentation.

Courses
To view a listing of courses offered, visit www.catalog.hawaii.edu/courses/departments/ws.htm.