Women’s Center remembers its determined past
By coordinating events throughout March to honor national Women’s History Month, the Women’s Center is helping to celebrate USU’s own women’s history, which has come a long way in a small amount of time.
From Tuesday’s opening social, “Women Who Dug Up History,” to art displays, radio shows, a documentary on Afghani women and an awards celebration for women over 65, the Women’s Center has coordinated events to appeal to almost anyone’s interests while celebrating women at the same time.
But an official group with a space to organize on behalf of women hasn’t always been a reality at USU. In fact, director of the USU Women’s Center and 27-year faculty member Janet Osborne remembers a time when such a resource was just developing at USU – literally developing out of a women’s restroom in the Taggart Student Center.
After two years of putting together a proposal on the need for a women’s center and a request for a space, Osborne said a group of students took a strange, but practical idea for the center’s home to the administration.
“In ’74, the Associated Women Students (AWS) went to the administration, who was quite supportive, but said ‘Sorry, no space,'” Osborne said. “So the AWS said, ‘We’ll just find a space.’ Someone thought of a particularly vacant women’s bathroom and sat outside it to see how often it was used.”
The AWS presented their findings to the administration and had it approved, but when the work just wasn’t being done to convert the space, Osborne said the group wrote to Betty Ford and asked her to dedicate the space when her husband, U.S. President Gerald Ford, spoke at USU’s Commencement.
When Ford agreed, Osborne said the AWS went back to the administration and said, “It’d be a good idea to have it done by then.” They scurried around for a desk and furniture and Ford cut the ribbon June 8, 1974, Osborne said.
When the center celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2004, it also acquired a new space, now known as the Center for Women and Gender Programs in TSC Room 315.
“It’s been a slow, steady progress from the restroom to here – from the WC, water closet, to the WC, Women’s Center,” Osborne said, laughing. “This story reflects just what a collective effort the WC has been all these years. I’m just a facilitator to bring together groups of people to have the programs and support we do.”
Though especially visible and prevalent during Women’s History Month, the programs coordinated by the Women’s Center are constantly ongoing.
“We’ve always tried to fill a niche that others – for whatever reasons – don’t do. We always try to do something to fill a need in terms of programs with a gender basis,” Osborne said. “We address issues of gender, how it affects our lives and relationships. We are a valuable resource.”
She said one of those needs was for more interaction and involvement on campus.
“In ’74, for the first four or five years, we held a conversation every Tuesday and KUSU would record the programs and rebroadcast them,” Osborne said of the Women’s Center and faculty’s discussions of gender issues. “We were the only ones on campus doing stuff like that, and now there are so many programs.”
Many of the programs and support for women on campus are provided by the Reentry Student Center, Women and Gender Studies, the Women and Gender Research Institute and ADVANCE, which are all housed in TSC Room 315 along with the Women’s Center.
“There was always a need to bring women’s groups together,” she said. “This space has such great programs that address gender, equity and the interests of women on campus.”
Pointing to a high shelf lined with thick scrapbooks from past years, Osborne noted the absolute diversity of programs and issues found within their pages.
That diversity will be celebrated during the month of March, starting with International Women’s Day March 8, where students are encouraged to visit Global Village Gifts, a nonprofit corporation that helps artisans from other countries by buying goods from fair-trade groups, according to a list of USU celebration for the month.
The list provided by Osborne also included a reminder to stop in Caffe Ibis to support and learn more about Café Femenino, “a project of hope to promote women coffee farmers in Peru who produce a specialty organic and fair-trade coffee.”
The legacy of the Women’s Center at USU is part of a larger effort celebrated nationally as Women’s History Month. By coordinating events not only this month, but all year round, the Women’s Center is filling a need at USU while also recognizing the work of others who made its presence possible.
-lindsaykite@cc.usu.edu