by Nancy Browning, University Communication intern

The CWRU Center for Women is moving up in the world—literally.

On May 12, they moved out of the first-floor office they have occupied in Bellflower Hall and into a newly renovated space on the third floor of Thwing Center.

Dorothy Miller, director of the new center, said the move comes after 10 years' of University efforts centered on "the desire to have a women's center that will serve the needs of women."

The center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, and Miller said she hopes the center will eventually be open evenings as well.

photo by Susan Griffith Ginnette Boyarko and Dorothy Miller (right) in the new CWRU Center for Women.

The center's calendar of events is extensive even now, and soon those events will take place largely in the Thwing offices rather than being spread throughout different locations across campus. Miller said she also plans for the new space to be a "place for people to meet each other, just hang out."

The University Women's Coalition has sponsored programs and worked for a number of years prior to the formation of the Center for Women. The coalition consisted of women's groups around campus and a number of alumnae, particularly from the Flora Stone Mather Alumnae Association. They organized the Woman 2000 conference and have been a major part of the campaign to create a women's center on campus.

Miller, who was formerly chair of the Center for Women's Studies at Wichita State University, said she looked forward to coming to CWRU because the women's center would be campuswide in its service rather than focusing only on one particular school within the University. Miller liked the idea that CWRU's Center for Women would serve all women on campus, including faculty and staff, and that it would also do community outreach and work with alumnae.

"It is a very broad scope, but I like it," Miller said.

She also said that she became interested in the field of women's studies while teaching social work. She found that her research and teaching interests were becoming increasingly focused on women. She then decided to seek a job in women's studies and found that she could remain in her field of public and social policy by studying women's issues within that context.

"I really liked the interdisciplinary aspect of women's studies," she said. "I was working side by side with anthropology, history, communication, a lot of different fields, and yet we revolved around an interest in women's studies."

Since her arrival at CWRU in September, Miller has spent most of her time creating connections both on and off campus with student, faculty, staff and community agencies that serve women's needs.

The purpose is to "get a sense of what the population is and what people's needs are, kind of a sense of CWRU and what it's like," Miller said.

The first few months of Miller's job have been rather administrative in nature, but she said she looks forward to the official opening of the Center for Women in Thwing.

"One of my favorite parts of the job is meeting with students," Miller said. "Right now I don't have occasion to meet with many because my job has been so administrative initially."

Once the Center opens, ideally it will become a center of activity with many students moving through the offices daily. An essential goal of the Center for Women is to improve the learning environment of CWRU, and that goal is far better served with the center's facilities at a more central location, Miller said.

Fundamentally, education is the goal of the Center for Women, according to the new director.

"We have to be a kind of midway point between the classroom and the world, so that we're not replacing what goes on in the classroom but still helping to enhance people's lives in regard to where they are and where they live," she said.

Miller also said that she sees a bright future for the Center for Women, especially within the context of the CWRU's new vision.

"President Hundert wants to see this as the most powerful learning environment in the world. I want to see it as one of the best places for women in the country," Miller said.

There are certainly challenges ahead, but with a little bit of luck and adequate motivation and support, Miller said she feels that goal could be realized within 10 years.

The essential challenge facing the Center for Women here at CWRU, according to Miller, is the same as the challenge that faces the field of women's studies nationally—"a prevailing misunderstanding about what women's studies is about." Miller said the mass media has helped to create a false image of women's studies as an ideological field that is prejudicial toward men.

"Students don't want to be involved because it's considered 'hating men,' and who wants to do that?" she said.

Miller describes women's studies as a highly analytical field that takes a scholarly approach to what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man. Her particular research focus is on women's economic well-being, which she sees as central to the heart of women's issues.

"Economic well-being has an effect on many other aspects of women's lives because it gives them choices," Miller said. "My desire is to see women have as many choices as men have. I'm not setting up a dichotomy in which men have all the breaks and women have none. But I do think that our society is gendered, and to the degree that women are disadvantaged, I want them to be advantaged."

Miller said she hopes that the center will be a place where all students-male and female-feel welcome. She acknowledges that at CWRU it is a particular challenge to attract students to the center because the campus is very studious.

"That poses challenges. People are studying all the time, and much of what we're about is perceived by them as not related to their studies," Miller said.

The majority of the center's events target students, though there are exceptions, such as a retirement group that the center sponsors and a recent celebration of administrative professionals day.

One project about which Miller said she is particularly enthusiastic is the Black and White Women Together discussion series, which Miller believes addresses "a really important social issue that we all have to deal with in terms of multiracial relationships." The series will continue in the fall and expand to encompass multicultural themes.

In terms of an overarching goal, Miller said she would like to see the CWRU student population, both women and men, better educated and more comfortable with how women's issues connect to their lives in a practical way.

She also wants "women students to know where they can go if they want to know more about their goals and themselves and any problems they might have." Although the University's counseling services and health services already do a good job, having a resource targeted specifically to women will create another positive resource, according to Miller.

In the long run Miller said she would like to see the University establish a research institute on the study of women "so that anyone at CWRU looking to do research on women can do collaborative work through the institute."

More immediately, Miller said a particularly exciting addition to the Center for Women is a health advocate who will be on board by the fall. The advocate's full-time job will be to work with small groups and individuals, act as a consultant and educate both women and men about women's health issues, particularly in the areas of sexuality, sexual issues, body image, eating disorders and "you name it," Miller said. The new staff person likely will be stationed either in the residence halls or in the center's old office in Bellflower Hall.

A vital goal Miller said she has for the Center is fun.

"Not everything has to be deadly serious," she said with a smile.

The new Center began operating out of the new Thwing office in May, and its grand opening celebration will take place in the fall.

To learn more about the center and how to get involved, visit their Web site at http://www.cwru.edu/provost/centerforwomen/.

 

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