Women's and Gender Studies Collection

In 1999, Dr. Erika Olbricht (Professor of English) noticed the lack of gender-based curriculum at Pepperdine as well as growing student interest in women’s, gender, or feminist studies and the success of the student-led Feminist Forum. In response, she met with a group of interested professors to develop and introduce new curriculum. This discussion led to the establishment of the Women’s Studies program as a minor in 2001 with Dr. Olbricht as the inaugural program director. Other program directors have been Dr. Lee Carroll (Emerita Professor of English), Dr. Julie Smith (Emerita Professor of English), Dr. Maire Mullins (Blanche E. Seaver Chair of English Literature and Professor of English), Dr. Tanya Hart (Associate Professor of History), and Dr. Loretta Hunnicutt (Professor of History). The current, 2025-26 program director is Dr. Katie Frye (Associate Professor of English). Dr. Carroll and Dr. Smith were present for the original 1999 meeting of faculty in support of the program, as well as Dr. Cynthia Novak (Professor of English) who did not serve as the program director, but was instrumental to the program’s foundation and early direction.

Beginning in Fall of 2022, the interdisciplinary minor became known as Women’s and Gender Studies rather than Women’s Studies. Its current aims are to prepare graduates to explain the impact of gender on human relations within local, national, transnational, and/or global communities, both past and present; demonstrate interdisciplinary skills in research through analyses of femininity and masculinity in written, verbal, visual, and other creative forms; understand and analyze how race, class, ethnicity, ability, religion, and nationality intersect with gender identity in order to use this understanding in dialogue with others; and articulate and assess their own gender role assumptions and identity.

This collection was established through collaboration between Dr. Katie Frye, Bailey Berry (Librarian for Digital Publishing, Curation, and Conversion) and Christopher Miehl (Archivist for Special Collections and University Archives) and support from Women’s and Gender Studies students Kyra Hatton ‘25 and Saskia Jager ‘26. It includes oral history interviews with program faculty and alumni as well as university documents related to the program’s establishment and development.