When the Psychology department approached Dr. Spencer Arcadia to teach the elective course, Psychology of Gender, he immediately agreed. For reasons unknown, the class had not been offered for three or four years. 

When the class was reintroduced for the spring semester, it was initially capped at 50 students, and reached this limit around the time of Thanksgiving break. 

Because the demand was high, and students continued to request seats within the course, the number of seats increased several times before reaching the maximum capacity of 70 students.

Arcadia hopes this class will continue to be offered as he believes it is important to achieving a well-rounded undergraduate education. 

 “The real world is diverse. When you get out of college, and you go into the work place, whether it’s here, in a different state or in a different country, the world out there is a diverse place,” Arcadia said. “You will be dealing with people of different genders, different sexes and of different sexualities. The world is not like East Texas.” 

Gender of Psychology will be offered again as a hybrid course for the fall 2014 semester. It will be taught by professor Laura Lamb, lecturer of psychology.

The University’s course catalog describes the class as “an examination of gender from a psychological, sociological and cultural perspective. How and why social expectations, standards and opportunities tend to be systematically related to gender, and the effects on male and female experience.”

However, the decision was made to expand the content to include sex and sexuality as areas of study.

Arcadia was instructed to have the class to explore beyond the male and female binaries and topics of masculine vs. feminine. 

The class aims to discuss gender roles and gender identity, and more specifically, the idea that gender and sex do not mean the same thing. 

When it comes to the format of the class, Arcadia takes on what he describes as a more uncharacteristic approach than usual. 

Because the class is offered as a junior level course, he designed the class to be more challenging and complex in content. 

Instead of using a standardized format with a textbook and multiple-choice tests, the course calls for extensive reading and writing, as well as in-class discussion. 

A primary goal of the course is allowing students to understand lifestyles and circumstances different from their own. 

Lou Anne Smoot, an openly gay Christian and author of A Christian Coming Out, came to speak to the class in February. 

Because this is an elective course, one may assume those enrolled hold strong interest in the issues of the course and embrace understanding different ways of life. 

However, the class consists of diverse views and beliefs.  

“There are people within the class who are progressive and openly gay, but there are also people who are very conservative and hold fundamental, systematic Christian beliefs,” Arcadia said. 

However, he makes it clear, everyone has the right to their individual beliefs and opinions. 

“My role is to present information and let them decide what they want to do with it and where they want to go with it,” Arcadia said.

Arcadia acknowledges that divisions occur within the class when it comes to hot-button issues such as sexuality, rape, abortion and  same-sex marriage.

“Our country is divided on these issues, so I would expect the class to be,”Arcadia said. 

When things get heated, Arcadia reins the class in and reminds them “This is about education, not about proving who’s right and who’s wrong.”  

He said it’s about finding common ground and agreeing to disagree.  

Julia Bodiford, a psychology major, signed up for the course due to her interest in sexuality, gender and sex. She felt like the course would offer a different perspective on gender that she didn’t previously have. 

Bodiford mainly wanted to learn about intersex and transsexual and transgender issues. She said she feels it is important to learn about these issues because there is a very small minority of people who are not learned about at all.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about these issues and I think it’s really important to be educated about it, so whenever you do speak to somebody in that particular group of people, you have the proper etiquette and language to be able to carry on a conversation and get to know someone, and not have gender be the main factor or your misperceptions of a purpose,” Bodiford said.  

She added that it is especially important for psychology majors, to  be inclusive of all people. 

“Nobody wants to go to a counselor and feel judgment or bias,” Bodiford said. “It’s important to be able to see different perspectives. It may not be my perspective, or that of anyone I know, but it may be someone’s who comes to me for help one day.” 

Landice Anderson already has all of her electives. She emailed Arcadia and requested that he make the class bigger just so she could take it. 

Because she has a lot of friends who are transgender and identifies as a non-binary femme individual herself, she wanted the opportunity to listen to other people’s perspectives and perhaps inform them. 

She also wanted to use her real world experience to answer any questions someone might have. 

Because she knows firsthand the importance of learning about gender and sexuality, she thinks the class should be offered as an area of study rather than an elective. 

“I think the fact that this class and others like it are offered as electives really deemphasizes and almost trivializes them.  It’s like you can take psychology of gender or this pottery class,” Anderson said. 

James DeBlanc, also a psychology major, feels “the theories in this class are more important to an average student than general psychology, and would be better to offer to fulfill core requirements.”