Sebastian B. Connolly and Summer E. Rose:
Enrollment in Harvard’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program has fallen to a more than 15-year low, as cuts to teaching positions and federal scrutiny of gender and sexuality-related programming raise questions about the program’s long-term sustainability.
22 undergraduates are currently concentrating in WGS, including joint and double concentrators, according to data from current and past concentration handbooks. The figure is the lowest since 2010 and represents a more than 50 percent decline from the program’s 2022-23 peak of 55 concentrators.
Only two are sophomores — the most recent class to declare their concentrations.
WGS markets itself as a flexible concentration, and the progam’s website notes that about half of its concentrators pursue a joint. Eight of the 18 concentrators who had declared as of December 2025 had combined WGS with another field for a joint concentration, according to the 2026-27 Fields of Concentration handbook.
While the number of solo or double concentrators has fluctuated over the past decade — dropping to a combined total of eight in both 2019-20 and 2020-21 — joint concentrators had consistently numbered in the double digits until this year.