WRC celebrates its opening

Missions statement culminates a year's worth of hard work

The Women's Resource Center (WRC) is open for business. After one and a half years of planning, the policy and programming boards declared the Center officially operational at an open house on March 8.

The Center consists of four rooms and a kitchen. Each room is furnished with chairs to encourage students to spend time hanging out or studying there.

Visitors to the grand opening browsed through the Center's reference library, which currently displays 68 books and information pamphlets donated by publishers. People also had the chance to "make their mark" on the Center in accordance with the open house's slogan. Using paint markers to decorate the blank wall blocking the entrance to the second floor of the house, students wrote portions of the Center's mission statement on the wall or added drawings depicting what they thought a Women's Resource Center should be.

The mission statement written on the wall represented the culmination of more than a year's worth of hard work on the part of the policy and programming boards, as well as last Spring's Experimental College (ExCo) course members whose job was to research other colleges' Women's Resource Centers.

"It's wonderful to see something like this come together," said Assistant Director of the Student Union Tina Zwegat, another policy board member. "The students on the boards worked really hard for this. We're really striving to make this as welcoming an environment as we can."

Sophomore Kim Tolman, a policy board member, had only a few words to say about the progress she's seen since becoming involved with planning for the Center last Fall. "This is awesome," she said.

Assistant Dean in the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) Shilpa Davé said she thought the WRC looked wonderful. Members of the WRC boards worked to collaborate with the MRC in order to do outreach to different organizations on campus.

"This is a really important center to have, and I think it's great. They have a really nice location, and hopefully soon it will be a stop on campus tours. I think from the turnout of students here today, the word will get out quickly," she said.

Making her mark: One visitor at the grand opening of the Women's Resource Center depicted her impressions of womanhood. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)