Message from the Chair

Welcome to the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (REGSS).

We are a new department born out of the efforts of student, community, and university activists who envisioned an academic space to engage in transformative educational practices that bridge the university and community. The faculty and staff are dedicated to working with students and communities towards racial, gender, class, and sexual equality. We believe that in these trying times our work is needed more than ever to seek solutions to systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and health disparities that are disproportionally affecting our communities. We are a unique interdisciplinary department that brings together three areas of study: African American, Mexican American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

The REGSS faculty and staff are devoted to facilitating students’ success at UTSA and to become agents of change. Many of our faculty are from the Mexican American and African American communities we serve and have deep roots in San Antonio, in the Mexico-US borderlands, and in immigrant communities. We are critical scholars who employ interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches in our research, teaching, and activism including Critical Race Theory, Chicana/x and Women of Color Feminisms, Decolonial Studies and Methodologies, Education, Social Movements, Critical Media Studies, Literature, Queer Theory, African Diaspora, Borderlands Theories and Pedagogies, and Music. Among our faculty, we have accomplished Mariachi, Conjunto, and Hip-Hop musicians.

Our work extends beyond the boundaries of the university. We work closely with the San Antonio community and with schools by offering dual enrollment courses in African American Studies (AAS), Mexican American Studies (MAS), and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). Since 2015, the Mexican American Studies (MAS) Teachers’ Academy has implemented MAS at the secondary level and in 2018 obtained approval of state standards. The MAS Teachers Academy is the only one of its kind in the state to offer a week-long intensive workshop for teachers. We also offer an African American Studies (AAS) Certificate in Secondary Education. The Women’s Studies Institute (WSI) maintains a student-centered, intersectional focus on gender and racial equality. WSI organizes the annual Women’s History Month events, bringing outstanding speakers, filmmakers, and performances. Our faculty, students, and staff organize and participate in key public programs in collaboration with students and community leaders such as MLK Day and Cesar Chavez Day, and Juneteenth. In 2020, we are also commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Our Curriculum reflects diasporic, decolonial, and intersectional approaches towards race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality studies in education. We have developed cutting-edge courses that address current social movements and culture such as courses on Selena and Black Lives Matter. Faculty not only teach about social movements but are participants in these movements.

We house the premier Chicana and Indigenous feminist journal Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of MALCS. The journal provides a space where Chicana/o/x, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, alternative, embodied scholarship is published. By providing this space, C/LS is integral to the mission of the Department and UTSA by bridging the borders between different communities, the university, ways of knowing, as well as theoretical, and methodological innovation.

As a REGSS graduate, whether you have a degree in African American, Mexican American, or Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, you will be able to pursue careers in the non-profit sector, government, education, and advocacy or you may choose to continue your education in graduate and professional schools.

Please let me know if you have any questions about how REGSS can be a part of your educational journey.

College of Education and Human Development
Main Building | One UTSA Circle | San Antonio, TX 78249
Phone: 210-458-4370 | education@utsa.edu