Women's Centers: Even More Relevant and Necessary Today

Abstract

The University of the Pacific opened its Women's Center in 2010, some 50 years after the University of Minnesota had originated the concept. A year earlier, the 160-year-old traditionally male-dominated university had welcomed its first woman president, Dr. Pamela A. Eibeck, an engineer. The oldest private college in California, the University of the Pacific was the first school to receive a charter from the newly formed state. “Women students at Pacific have a long and storied history of leadership and success across the disciplines, and particularly in the humanities,” said Corrie Martin, director of the Women's Resource Center. “I think our relatively small size and personalized education model promoted women student success in the past.” Martin spoke about the power of Women's Centers to transform schools at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) conference held in Phoenix in March 2012. Prior to 2010, the school “addressed women's issues in an ad hoc, grassroots way,” said Martin. “Individual faculty, students and administrators would identify problems or issues and seek to investigate and rally support for institutional change or response.” Sometimes they just went ahead and did the job themselves, like the dean of women who made condoms available in the residence halls. Thanks to a new female VP for student life who's a “visionary administrator,” and because of “critical gender-based challenges” (a brutal sexual assault on campus) creating the Women's Center was put on the fast track. The center's mandate is to “provide leadership and a collaborative space for organizing campus-wide efforts to understand and improve the academic and professional success of its women students, faculty and staff.” Martin's position is funded by the liberal arts unit and student life. The center organizes groups, provides a meeting place and resource library and offers internships and service learning opportunities, as well as collaborates with local, community-based organizations. Its objective is to “remain in the ‘mainstream’ of campus culture, collaborating with everybody, while effectively leading and mobilizing the campus community to recognize and address issues that might otherwise remain marginal and under-prioritized,” she said. Some would argue that a Women's Center, especially one that was just launched, is unnecessary when the student body is more than half female. Martin firmly disagrees. “I do think that the need for campus-based Women's Centers is as great as ever and will continue to be so for decades to come,” she said. “The increase in and dominance of women students earning all degrees belie entrenched inequities and roadblocks to actual equity in higher education for women.” Women's Centers are able to uncover and address the subtle incidents of discrimination. Speaking at an annual conference promoting girls' achievement in STEM, Martin asked some 80 middle and high school girls if they had ever heard or been told they couldn't do or study something because of their gender. “Nearly every girl raised her hand,” she said. “It was a sobering reminder to me about how much work needs to be done.” At Pacific, the concept of a Women's Center was already under discussion when the two catalysts, the new VP and the sexual assault, made it a top priority. If there is no Women's Center committee, start with the women's commission of faculty, administrators and students. Focus groups will help you refine the message. Track students you've worked with and incorporate their stories. “Gender equity and justice is the responsibility and work of every sector of campus,” said Martin. “It's enormously helpful to have a catalyst like the Women's Center to be able to provide some limited resources, energy and focus to this long-term project.” Determine how you'll strategically partner with other groups so all benefit. Seek out and form deep partnerships across campus but avoid losing the historical center. This year's political rhetoric has revealed that gender discrimination is still alive and well, and the academy is not immune. Women's Centers are about change; in today's political climate, they're needed more than ever. “The day that women do not have to plan their lives and families around the inhumane limitations of their academic workplace and schools is the day we won't need Women's Centers any longer,” she said. Contact: Martin1@pacific.edu or 209.932.2815