Women's Resource Center opens to the public

Visitors make mark at new resource center

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 Sunday.

Students, staff and community members came to explore the bottom floor of 124 Woodland St., the College-owned house now serving as the Center. The house's second floor is currently sealed off due to safety hazards.

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 browsed through the Center's reference library, which currently displays 68 books and information pamphlets donated by publishers. Titles included Women of the Beat Generation and The Women's Book of Courage.

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.

Sketches of various female forms accompanied phrases such as, "A place for those who share an interest in gender related issues."

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 good that a lot of people showed up. Our wall is well-decorated now," sophomore Cassie Seiple, a member of the policy board, said.

Members of both boards, which were formed at the beginning of this school year to get the Center up and running, attended the open house to welcome visitors and field questions. These students and staff members will staff the Center for two hours a day on weekdays and four hours on weekends for the remainder of the semester.

"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."

First-year Lara Insel is a member of the programming board, which holds open meetings weekly for students to give input and suggestions for programs they think the Center should host. "I'm really excited that we're open. I felt that Oberlin lacked a lot of support for women, and this is a really great step toward fixing that," Insel said.

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.

Junior Susan Dennehy, policy board Treasurer, said she was excited about the turnout of visitors at the open house. "It's great that so many people came. I didn't expect as many guys to come, so I'm really glad to see that too," she said.

Sophomore Rusty McCall was one of the male students who came to the open house. He said women aren't the only ones who should be concerned about gender issues. "I think it's necessary to have this Center. Even though we're all so supposedly educated, we're really not," he said. "You can't be overeducated and it's nice to have somewhere you can go where information is readily available and the environment is conducive to education."

First-year Jill Warsett, another open house attendee, liked the way the Center had turned out. "I think it's about time Oberlin has a Women's Resource Center," she said. "I'm really excited to be able to come here and feel welcome. I'd come here to read the books all the time."

Assistant Dean in the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) Shilpa Dav� 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.

Mary Wright Fisk, OC '28, used to live in the house in which the Center is now located. She and her husband Ernest sold the house to the College in 1928. It is still known as Fisk house.

Mary Fisk returned to her old home Sunday to explore the WRC. "I'm so delighted because for four years we wondered what the College would do with this house. I think this is wonderful," she said.

Making her mark: One visitor at the Women�s Resource Center open house depicted her impressions of womanhood. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)