The Virtual Women's Center
 Oberlin College
is no longer being maintained.

Visit the recently established Women's Resource Center at 124 Woodland Street!


This site began as a 1996 Winter Term project involving students Cathy Cuddihy and Miki Tsukamoto, co-sponsored by Alison Ricker (1) and Jessica Grim (2). The impetus for the project arose from concerns expressed by student members of the Committee on the Status of Women, stating a need for a Women's Center on campus. The committee agreed that the most immediate need, while continuing to work for a viable, physical space on campus, was to create web pages to consolidate information and facilitate contacts between users and services; to create, in a sense, a Virtual Women's Center.

Since that time, a group of highly motivated students, led by Susan Dennehy, worked with Associate Dean of Students William Stackman to bring the Women's Resource Center into being. Bill Stackman announced the opening of the Center to faculty and staff with an email message, dated March 15, 1998, requesting support in the way of donations of books, magazine and other materials for the resource library, and providing the Center's Mission Statement:

MISSION STATEMENT

WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER

The mission of the Oberlin College Women's Resource Center is to serve as a central location for individuals and groups who share an interest in gender issues and various concerns pertaining to women. The center aims to be a source for information, education, support, and outreach for the Oberlin community. With this in mind, the center provides space for different groups on campus to meet, disseminate information on various women's issues, maintain a working library, provide safe space for survivors of abuse, help organize, plan, and fund speakers and other types of programming, and provide informal counseling. Working with the numerous women's groups of the College and local area, the Women's Resource Center strives toward affirming the identity of individual women, while working toward greater awareness in issues such as gender in society, racial identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, women's health and reproduction, and violence against women. - March 15, 1998

Students and others who were interested in establishing a Women's Resource Center (WRC) or at least staying informed on the project communicated on a listserv: wrc@ocaxp1.cc.oberlin.edu. The list is still viable, contact Christy McGauley for more information. Recent discussions on the list have focused on co-sponsoring a women's self-defense workshop and inviting speakers or performing artists to campus. The WRC elects its own govening board, and advertised two student employment opportunities in Fall 1998: a programing assistant and community liaison. Given the relatively well-established status of the WRC, maintaining this web site as a "Virtual" center is less relevant. It may evolve into a web site for the WRC, if the WRC board or staff feel that is desirable.

 

OTHER RESOURCES FOR WOMEN

The Oberlin College Women's Studies Program

College Policies

Resources for Women in the Oberlin College Archives

Internet Resources Relating to Women

(1) Alison Ricker, Science Librarian in the Science Library, Kettering Hall,was Chair of the Committee on the Status of Women at the time of the winter term project that resulted in these web pages. The General Faculty Committee on the Status of Women is no longer active. Records for the Committee are archived in the College Archives.
(2) Jessica Grim, Reference Librarian in the Main Library, Mudd Center, was a member of the Women's Studies Program Committee in 95/96, and still serves on the committee as the liaison librarian for women's studies.

This page maintained by Alison Ricker, Science Librarian
95/96 Chair of the Committee on the Status of Women
Last updated: 29 October 1998

 

 

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