by Kathryn Brooks

In the early 1970s, as the women’s movement gained momentum in the U.S., college campuses were being challenged to meet the growing needs of women students, staff, and faculty. Women’s centers were being established throughout the nation with two agendas: providing services for a large number of women who had not completed a college education in the ’50s and ’60s, a phenomenon noted by Betty Friedan in her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique; and creating equity on campus for women faculty, staff, and students, a major issue that resulted in the Title IX legislation of 1972. Fueled by their own experiences, a visionary group of campus and community women advocated for such services at the University of Utah. Their efforts resulted in the establishment of the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) in July 1971. Looking back at the climate in which they were working, I am astounded at their foresight and tenacity.

Kathryn Brooks
Director of the
Women’s Resource
Center at the U of U

No blueprints existed on how to establish a center; however, with support from the University’s only woman administrator, Virginia Frobes BA’34 MA’35 PhD’58, vice president for student affairs, the idea became a physical reality. In its first year, the center was housed in the Annex and furnished with donated or “recycled” furniture and equipment. Just one year later, it was relocated to a more visible area—the “Browsing Room” in the Olpin Student Union. The staff used the space in the front part of the lounge, removing and locking up their equipment across the hall at night. Gradually the center “took over” the entire room—including the flagstone fireplace—adding desks, moveable walls, more donated furniture, and a library with books by and about women, which continues to be a valued resource.

The WRC became the University’s focal point for large numbers of returning women students. The staff developed programs and provided support to assist them in overcoming the barriers that existed in a setting designed for 18-22 year olds. They established the first nontraditional scholarships, began a program to overcome math anxiety, and developed an academic support course entitled “Three to Get Ready.”

The center also became renowned for its annual conferences that focused on important women’s issues addressed by prominent speakers of that era, including a fabled evening with Gloria Steinem. Working with other women in the community, WRC staff established services for rape survivors and victims of domestic violence. And it played a role statewide in helping to found the Consortium for Utah Women in Higher Education and HERS/West, a professional development and networking organization in the Rocky Mountain West. In the 1970s the center began a feminist therapy counseling program, which evolved into a nationally recognized Feminist Therapy/Multicultural Practicum for students of both social work and clinical psychology. Graduates of the program are now practicing in the national and international arena.

During the ’70s and ’80s WRC staff produced or coordinated major reports on the status of women on campus and was one of the first to use Bernice Sandler and her monograph The Campus Climate: A Chilly One for Women as an educational resource. The center pushed for the development of policies and procedures on sexual harassment (a term coined in the late 1970s) to protect women on campus. The staff advocated for hiring and promoting more women, began a program for single parents, and advocated for campus child care. In the early 1990s, the center brought the issue of date/acquaintance rape to campus through its peer education programs and, with its “Seeds of Violence” program, continues to work toward eliminating violence to women on campus and in the community. Today, we have committed ourselves to increasing opportunities for women of color on campus and joined the efforts to encourage diversity at the University of Utah.

For 30 years the center has been the change agent for Utah women. Thirty years ago the founding mothers believed equity would have been achieved by 2000. Although many of the barriers they set out to remove have fallen, and we hear from thousands of women who have achieved personal goals with the center’s help, we have not yet attained women’s full participation in all areas of University life. Recently, in an address at Rutgers University’s Institute for Women’s Leadership, Patricia Harwood observed, “Even as we look to the 21st century, women are still the exception instead of the rule in visible leadership roles. Our society critically needs the benefits that accrue by having both genders represented in its key leadership roles.”

Today, a strong, nationally recognized WRC continues its tradition of training and advocating for women’s leadership in the University—and the world—of the 21st century.

Copyright 2001 by The University of Utah Alumni Association