University and College Women's and Gender Equity Centers

The Changing Landscape

Brenda Bethman, Anitra Cottledge, Donna M. Bickford, Brenda Bethman, Anitra Cottledge, Donna M. Bickford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351174688
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

University and College Women's and Gender Equity Centers examines the new institutional contexts surrounding women's centers. It looks at the possibilities for, as well as the challenges to, advocating for gender equity in higher education, and the ways in which women's and gender equity centers contribute to and lead that work.

The book first describes the landscape of women's centers in higher education and explores the structures within which the centers are situated. In doing so, the book shows the ways in which many women's centers have expanded their work to include working with athletics, Greek life, men, transgender students, international students, student parents, veterans, etc. Contributions then delve into the profession of women's center work itself, and ask how women's center work has become "professionalized?" Threats and challenges to women's and gender equity centers are also explored, as contributions look at how their expansion has helped or complicated the role of centers? The collection concludes by highlighting current successes and forward-thinking approaches in women's centers and asking how gender equity centers can best prepare for the future?

Through narratives, case studies, and by offering strategies and best practice, University and College Women's and Gender Equity Centers will engage emerging and existing equity centre professionals and women's and gender studies faculty and students and help them to move the work of gender equity forward in the next decade.

1 Positioning campus women’s and gender equity centers for success

Structural issues and trends

Jane Goettsch, Ann Linden, Cindy Vanzant, and Pattie Waugh

The continuing relevance of women’s and gender equity centers

Gender demographics of students at US colleges and universities have changed in recent decades. By 1980 women had overtaken men as the majority of undergraduates, and by 2006 women were earning more degrees than men at every level except professional (where their representation almost equaled men’s) (Touchton et al. 11). For some, these factors alone prompt questions about whether campus women’s centers are still relevant. In addition, recent political, economic, and social conditions have heightened scrutiny of higher education and the continuing need for units like women’s centers.

While the first campus women’s centers were founded in the 1960s, they emerged in large numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, often alongside women’s studies programs, to address gender inequities experienced by women, including unequal access to higher education. Now that women outnumber men on most college campuses, is access still an issue? For whom? And what of other gender inequities? Vlasnik notes that gender inequity is still a concern despite women’s growing numbers, and she offers these cautions:

First, we must identify which women and men we are discussing and attend to how intersecting identities change access and equity in higher education; second, the “quantity” of women in higher education is a different discussion than the “quality” of their experiences, and; third, the many histories of women’s access to higher education are critical to understanding their current status, opportunities, and challenges.

(24)

In addition to issues of access, many of the other inequities that led to the establishment of women’s centers decades ago also remain, contributing to such ongoing, serious campus problems as sexual harassment and assault, chilly classroom climate, and other barriers to student success that disproportionately affect women and shape their experience following graduation through the continuing gender wage gap, family/work integration challenges, and underrepresentation of women in leadership and in certain professions.

Research by Sax found that women enter college with lower levels of academic self-confidence (25), higher levels of self-reported stress (33), and lower ratings of their physical and emotional health (34) than those of men. This gender gap remains significant over the college years. As Marine notes, women’s centers continue to play an important role in “extending support, and creating spaces for quiet comfort and fortitude for boundary pushing” (19), as well as educating their campus communities about gender equity.

Despite evidence of continuing inequities, some in higher education believe that gender equity has been achieved. This belief presents challenges for women’s centers attempting to engage students and other members of the campus community with ongoing women’s and gender issues. In her study of 75 campus women’s centers, Kasper notes obstacles mentioned by women’s center directors in running their centers, including “the notion that special attention to women’s issues isn’t ‘necessary’ anymore,” negative attitudes toward feminism, and general apathy toward women’s issues (498). Campbell observes that “programs and pedagogies that engage directly with questions of gender and sexuality may be located at the edges of the curriculum [and, by implication, co-curriculum], implicitly marginalizing the issues and people they address” (1). This marginalization further challenges women’s centers.

An additional concern for women’s centers – and certainly not a new issue – is lack of funds. Thirty years ago Clevenger found that, regardless of institutional demographic categories, lack of funding was the most significant constraint on the operation of women’s centers (6). Marine’s research confirms that this is an ongoing, serious challenge (22).

In the context of changing student demographics, the belief that gender equity has been achieved, continued marginalization of gender-related work, and serious economic challenges facing colleges and universities, campus women’s centers must be strategic to thrive now and in the future. Strategic planning requires consideration of structural factors shaping campus women’s and gender equity centers.

Structural issues for campus women’s and gender equity centers

Organizational configurations

Several types of women’s and gender equity centers exist on college campuses:

• Community activist/action centers. Often staffed by volunteers, including students, or by part-time staff, such centers provide places to meet, find support, organize, and take action for social change.
• Student services/resource centers. Often led by a master’s-level professional director, though increasingly led by doctoral-level directors, these student-focused centers are typically located in student affairs divisions. They are generally strong on programs and services and less focused on influencing or setting institutional policy.
• Synthesis centers. Often led by professional directors with doctorates or by faculty, these centers are more likely to be housed in academic affairs or institutional diversity divisions and to serve a broad constituency. They also play a role in curriculum and policy transformation as well as offer programs and services.
• Hybrid centers. Typically staffed by a faculty member, these combined academic and administrative centers offer coursework in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies along with student services such as community space, programming, and student organization advising.
• Research centers. Staffed primarily by faculty, these centers focus on research and publication of scholarly reports on gender issues.

The word center has symbolic value in naming women as the “center” of inquiry and action. According to the data compiled by the National Women’s Studies Association Women’s Centers Committee, of the approximately 500 campus women’s program and service units in the US, almost 75% include the term center in their title. However, campus sites for work on women’s and gender issues are not always called women’s centers. While the term women’s center is used throughout this chapter, the authors intend for this chapter to be applicable to and useful for all configurations.

The remainder of this chapter focuses on the most common types of women’s center configurations – student services/resource centers and synthesis centers serving faculty and staff as well as students. It is important to note that the faculty and staff women who advocated for creation of women’s and gender equity centers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are retiring and younger people are taking their place. The entrance of young, increasingly doctoral-level professionals into the field is reshaping women’s center work.

Divisional placement and reporting line

The women’s centers literature clearly documents that centers vary widely across institutional types, needs, and histories. According to Marine, the type of women’s center an institution establishes is shaped by “the specific institutional context, the attendant political milieu, and the relative weight/importance of student, faculty and staff needs and concerns” (19).

Since a center’s divisional placement helps determine its constituents, mission, and activities, it is important to be strategic about organizational location and reporting line when centers are being established or when organizational changes are being considered. Decisions about reporting line should take into account a center’s mission and constituent base as well as how the reporting line will be perceived. If the women’s center exists to serve students, a reporting line through student affairs makes sense. Conversely, if the center serves faculty and staff as well as students, reporting to an entity that has responsibility for all of these constituencies (e.g., academic affairs/provost or an institutional office of equity/diversity/inclusion) may be more effective. A center’s organizational placement and reporting line within a division (e.g., health/wellness unit, student leadership unit, or diversity unit) can also impact the focus of a center’s work.

Finally, given the hierarchical nature of colleges and universities, placement within the reporting line hierarchy is important. In general, the closer one is to senior decision makers, the better. Of the 124 campus women’s centers featured in Clevenger’s study, “respondents who were separated from the office of president by two or more hierarchical levels (particularly four or more levels) were more likely to express that their center was constrained by lack of institutional commitment” (5). This affects not only the staff’s ability to advocate for change but also the public’s perceptions of the center’s effectiveness as a change agent. If constituents perceive that their women’s center has little power to bring about institutional change, they may be less likely to bring campus-wide issues (e.g., harassment or gender bias in policies and practices) to the attention of the center. Center staff cannot act on issues of which they are unaware. Consequently, problematic policies and practices persist, and the center continues to be perceived as ineffective in influencing institutional change.

Space issues

Women’s centers are more likely than offices of women’s programs/services to be allocated gathering space that is separate from staff offices. Such space highlights the value of dedicated areas for group work and community building.

Some women’s centers are located in stand-alone houses; others in suites within administrative, academic, or residential buildings. Each type of location has merits and disadvantages. A house often provides more space but may be an older building in need of repair. A house also typically seems more “homey,” but may be perceived as a place where support is plentiful but education is not. Women’s centers located within administrative, academic, or residential buildings are often cramped but more likely to be modernized as part of building renovations. They may also be perceived as less “homey” but more educational in function.

Some women’s centers are located in basements, on the fringes of campuses, or in spaces that are hard to find or difficult to access. And some women’s centers are co-located with other identity centers, either as distinct areas within a shared space or blended into a common area. Co-location with distinct spatial areas can promote collaborative working relationships among staff and students while retaining space for various constituency groups. Co-location that blurs the identity-based nature of identity centers’ work can increase confusion about who the space serves, who is welcome, and how various constituencies “claim” space.

Where a center is located and how much and what kind of space it has been allocated say a lot about how the center and its constituents are valued by the institution. It is important for decision makers to think strategically when considering space issues, particularly when women’s centers are being established or when location changes are being considered.

Trends for campus women’s centers

Incorporating inclusivity, intersectionality, and social justice principles

Feminism, foundational to women’s center work, has become more inclusive, intersectional, and social justice oriented as women’s centers draw on the interdisciplinary work of their academic colleagues. Further, students, increasingly exposed to these concepts in classes, bring an interest in and familiarity with these principles as tools of analysis.

Jennrich and Kowalski-Braun note that “As the landscape of higher education has continued to evolve and change, identity-based centers have been encouraged to be less singularly focused and be able to articulate the tensions among and amongst the groups which they serve” (202). They suggest that:

The movement towards an intersectional approach requires a shift of centers’ self-concept. Instead of assuming an identity group has a universal experience of oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, and/or the combinations of these identities, intersectionality imposes no limits to the numbers or types of intersected identity experiences.

(204)

Marine highlights “the importance of inviting others into the work remaining to be done around gender equity,” including men and transgender individuals, and the need for authentic engagement with “other forms of anti-oppression work” (26). There is now more focus within women’s centers on explicitly anti-racist/anti-oppression work and the broader category of gender and its fluidity. Such work requires a supportive, collaborative relationship with multicultural and LGBTQ+ centers and diversity affairs offices. Additionally, women’s centers’ social justice efforts can benefit from partnerships with programs that focus on community service and service learning. Jennrich and Kowalski-Braun call on centers “to move beyond identity work to engagement in authentic social justice work, undergirded by intersectionality theory” (200).

The incorporation of principles of inclusivity, intersectionality, and social justice require alliances with other campus units. Working to build alliances and coalitions across campus and in the local community is often the way women’s centers accomplish their work. Alliances allow for resource sharing, helping the typically small staffs of women’s centers accomplish more with less. Allies also provide support in difficult times.

Women’s centers often find value in building partnerships with academic programs (e.g., women’s/gender/sexuality studies programs), institutional commissions on women, and campus LGBTQ+ and diversity/inclusion offices. When such units work together as equals to address an issue, the results are often exponentially larger than if the women’s center addressed an issue alone. Building alliances helps not just across campus but also in the community (Marine 24), which enhances women’s centers’ relevance to the institutional mission. Doing women’s center work within the framework of the university mission, as noted by Marine, “is not something that a women’s center can afford to be casual about” (24). Alliances make particular sense for women’s centers in an era of shrinking resources and significant institutional change.

Merging identity centers

Another trend is the merging of distinct identity centers into a combined center. This trend may reflect the move toward inclusivity, intersectionality, and social justice principles. It may also reflect fiscal challenges within an institution and the increasing corporatization of higher education in general.

There are advantages to a combined center in terms of ability of team members to support each other in what is often emotionally difficult work, ease of collaborating, and ability to do truly intersectional work. There are also potential drawbacks to combining identity centers. Merging can result in a department that is so diffuse that the original identity centers lose their distinctness and their attractiveness as safe spaces for minoritized groups. In addition, merging can mean that identity center directors lose access to decision makers and communication channels. On the other hand, Jennrich and Kowalski-Braun remind us that “intersectionality (does) not function to eradicate difference, but to illuminate the potential interactions among identity groups and to uncover how we are oppressed by the same systems” (205).

(Re)naming women’s centers

When women’s centers are brought together with other identity centers, renaming may be part of the merger process. If the women’s center retains its distinctiveness as an entity within the combined unit or shared space, it may be able to keep its name or choose a new name that recognizes the collaborative work that the merger encourages. If the merger is complete and the women’s center loses its d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Positioning campus women’s and gender equity centers for success: structural issues and trends
• 2 Beyond parties and PNMs: an integrated model for women’s and gender centers and sororities
• 3 Exploring the relationships between campus women’s centers and LGBTQ+ centers and initiatives
• 4 Solidarity is for all: women’s centers serving women of color
• 5 Late to the game: the politics of opening a women’s center in 2015
• 6 Where do we enter? How do we stay? The role of consciousness-raising in developing women’s center professionals
• 7 Experiences of women’s center directors in student affairs
• 8 On trauma, ambivalence, and trying too hard
• 9 Putting our oxygen masks on first: women’s and gender center staff and self-care
• 10 Seeking relevance in an age of inequity: a case study of the identity struggle of one women’s center
• 11 “Blue” language in a red state: inclusive sexuality education in a conservative climate
• 12 Ohio women’s centers’ reflections on evaluation and assessment: revisited
• 13 Paying homage to college and university women’s centers: gender justice work in the center for diversity and inclusion
• 14 Beyond the label: leveraging the iconography of “feminist” from moments to movements
• 15 The personal and the professional: intersectional experiences in gender justice work
• 16 Addressing and dismantling cisgenderism in womxn’s centers: reframing womxn’s centers work toward an intersectional critical trans politic
• 17 Vision to action: inside out strategic planning
• 18 Setting a transformative agenda for the next era: research on women’s and gender centers
• Index