Teaching and Training

The Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy offers educational opportunities for Humphrey School students and the broader community. Drawing on the strengths of the Humphrey School, an engaged alumni network, and faculty affiliates across the University, the Center delivers course content, specialized training, and public events that address gender policy issues at the local, national, and global levels.

Concentration in Gender and Public Policy

The Humphrey School is unique among top public policy schools in offering a pre-designed concentration in gender and public policy. Students from across the world come to the Humphrey School to integrate a gender lens into their master's degree studies. Faculty from diverse Humphrey School areas contribute courses to the concentration, and students can also count gender-focused courses offered elsewhere in the University (such as in law, sociology, or public health) towards the requirements.

The concentration is ideal for students who seek a career specifically in gender and policy, or who wish to bring a gender focus to their work more generally. Learn more about the Gender and Public Policy Concentration here.

GAINS: Gender and Intersectional Network Series

The GAINS workshop series prepares students with the skills to lead effectively and challenge institutional norms that perpetuate gender and other forms of bias. GAINS engages 15-30 graduate students in a network of practice, focusing on topics related to gender and intersectionality in relationship to leadership development and institutional change. This one-credit, two semester course is offered every other year and meets for four workshops per semester. Learn more about GAINS here.

Internships in Gender and Public Policy

The Center provides grant funding to support master’s students who seek training at organizations that address gender inequality and who may not otherwise be able to afford an unpaid internship. The Center also maintains a database of gender and public policy internship opportunities. Learn more about internships here.

Gender Policy Report Summer Fellowship

One Gender Policy Report Summer Fellowship will be available to eligible Humphrey School PhD and master’s students in 2024, with preference given to PhD students. The fellowship is a $6,000 award that will be paid during the summer. For the fellowship, students must apply to work with a Gender Policy Report faculty curator on a project to translate and transmit analysis on key areas of gender policy and produce two blog posts for the Gender Policy Report website.

Application and Deadline

Applicants should specify the types of projects they intend to work on, describe how working with faculty curators will enhance their own research, and note how their research interests intersect with the aims of the Gender Policy Report. The completed application will include the fellowship application form, a three-page research proposal, a two-page CV, and an unofficial transcript. More information about upcoming opportunities and deadlines is available here. 

Applications should clearly articulate the following: 

  1. Explain the subject, aim, and policy recommendations for the two articles you hope to write, in language accessible to non-specialists.
  2. Indicate the imagined Research Areas (see https://genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/) for each article.
  3. Explain how each article relates to an aspect of US public policy, including matters of local, state, federal, and US foreign policy. 

Applications are due by 9:00 am on March 22nd. Please contact the Center with questions ([email protected])

University of Minnesota Gender Scholars

The Center maintains a list of faculty across the Twin Cities campus whose research or teaching relate to women or gender. We also maintain a list of recent graduate course offerings by these faculty as a resource for students to identify courses of interest. If you are a University of Minnesota faculty member and would like to be added to this list, please contact us. 

Case Study Project

The Center's case study project, led by former Center Director Sally Kenney from 2000-2010, produced case studies in women and public policy. The Center's comprehensive research of the existing databases of public policy cases (such as the Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the University of Washington's Electronic Hallway, and others) showed that less than 1% of the thousands of existing cases raised women's issues or even had a female protagonist. Several of the cases produced have been used in classes at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the sociology department at the University of Toronto, and Mills College, to name a few. 

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Cases