Women’s Center celebrates 30th anniversary at USU
Celebrating 30 years of service Saturday afternoon, Utah State University Women’s Center gave tribute to former directors and advisory board members, reflected on the many programs the center offers and officially opened the center’s new space with a ribbon-cutting.
“It’s beautiful,” said former Women’s Center director Sharon Smock Hoffmann of the new center. “It’s outstanding. What a change from when I was here. This has been a long-time coming.”
The Center for Women and Gender Programs, located on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center, is now the home of the Women’s Center for Lifelong Learning, the Reentry Student Center, Women and Gender Studies, Women and Gender Research Institute and ADVANCE.
And while all of the organizations are separate entities, current center director Janet Osborne said, they are similar in purpose. It made sense to provide a space where the organizations can work collaboratively, she said.
“It brings the teaching, research and service aspects [of gender studies] together,” she said.
The new center is also a far cry from the center’s first beginnings in 1974 in a renovated restroom, Osborne said.
“There is a synergy in togetherness,” Hoffman said. “It’s much better than being spread across campus.”
Prior to the ribbon-cutting, a program was offered honoring many of the people who have contributed to the center’s success over the years.
“We want to thank you for your vision, your courage and your energy to institute change,” Juan Franco, vice president for student services, said.
The center’s main goal, Osborne said, has always been, and will continue to be, helping women, especially those who are reentering the educational system to obtain a college degree. This is done, she said, through both financial aid and peer support.
The center also offers support and financial aid to men who are reentry students, she said, and the organizations located in the new center will encourage the support of research of gender-related issues among both men and women.
“This Women’s Center is unique among American colleges and universities,” Marilynne Glatfelter, a speaker at the commemoration, said. “This center is one of collaboration, cooperation, interdependence, sharing and caring. It’s doing big things with little money and attending to little things with big importance.”
The Women’s Center has awarded more than $625,000 to more than 2,000 students, she said.
In the 30 years the Women’s Center has been in service, Glatfelter said, the basic goals have remained, including fighting for pay equity on campus, fair maternity and child care accommodations, providing financial aid and especially reaching out to women in the community who might be thinking about going back to school.
The center has grown tremendously, she said, with the first scholarship offered in 1974 worth $25. Now the center has 36 named scholarships each worth hundreds of dollars.
“The dreams you have helped to survive and the minds you have helped to thrive are no small accomplishment,” said Tom Parker, another speaker at the program and current co-chair of the Women’s Center Advisory Board.
Thad Box, a Women’s Center advocate who spoke at the commemoration, compared the center to the tulips he helps plant with his granddaughters and the center in honor of breast cancer every fall. No matter how shriveled the bulbs, he said, given fertile soil and adequate light and water, there are no ugly flowers come spring.
“You have given 30 years of fertile soil to the shriveled lives of men and women alike,” he said.
The world must continue to be wary of positions that claim women must be subservient to men, he said. Positions such as that continue in many cultures, even today, and is one reason programs such as the Women’s Center, which empowers women, should be supported, he said.
At first, the position of full-time director was filled by more than five people on a time-share basis, Glatfelter said. Currently, the Women’s Center employs one full-time director and two staff assistants.
The service and educational programs the center supports have also grown, she said. Programs include Dollar Days, Plant-a-Pink Tulip, Boecker’s Breaker, the Mitten Tree, the Clothesline Project, Men Against Violence, Red Zone and Healing through Writing.
“If it’s a good cause, we can make it happen,” Glatfelter said quoting Osborne.
Pat Gardner, a former Advisory Board member and who was present at the original ribbon-cutting in 1974 by Betty Ford, took her place.
-bnelson@cc.usu.edu