Women's Center for Gender and Pride Initiatives
Strategic Plan
Mission Statement | Departmental Highlights | Departmental Challenges | Departmental Goals
MISSION STATEMENT
The Women's Center of Southern Methodist University empowers students within the university to increase awareness and understanding of gender equity issues. The Women's Center gives voice for women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (lgbt) community, with purpose to eliminate barriers, diminish prejudices, and create a supportive climate and space for all.
2010-11 DEPARTMENTAL HIGHLIGHTS
For our department, some highlights from this past year include:
- Celebrating our 46th Annual Women’s Symposium with keynote speaker, Julie Powell speaking to the theme "Happiness Is..."
- Hosting the "Let's Talk About It" program with the Delta Gamma Foundation Lectureship for Values and Ethics, Student Development and Programs, New Student Orientation and Student Support, and Counseling and Psychiatric Services with approximately 1700 new students participating or taking a parallel online course
- Launching an LGBT Staff and Faculty Group on campus
- Hosting women of color (students, staff, and faculty) for our monthly Food Chain networking group, and
- Training 75 new Allies for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community on campus.
We advise five student organizations on campus. These groups put on numerous programs, one of note is the Vagina Monologues. Celebrating the 13th year of the Vagina Monologues, ticket sales raised over $2000.00 for Brighter Tomorrows, a family violence shelter in Dallas. We also reached into the classroom, teaching the workshops "The Spectrum of Relationships" and "Language and Gender" in Wellness classes as well as across campus through the "You Don't Have to Cancel Class" program. Throughout the year, we put on lots of programs, events, and trainings for the SMU community and beyond, spreading our pillars of Voice, Community, Purpose, and Equity.
DEPARTMENTAL CHALLENGES
- Our limited budget does not provide for all staff to attend our national conference (NWSA) on an annual basis. We have been fortunate that Student Development and Programs has been able to supplement some of our travel, however, in order to be an exemplary Women's Center, we do need professional development and connection to our peers.
- Traditional Programming has not always been successful for talking about a lot of the issues important to our Women's Center (sexual assault, violence prevention, discrimination). We need to find continually innovative ways in and out of the classroom to connect with students.
DEPARTMENTAL GOALS
Student Success
- Leadership Council–Expand on our advising support of student organizations with an intentional gathering of our leaders and direct support of their leadership roles.
- Love Your Body Day–Coordinate with the university Dietician, the Health Center, and the Dedman Center to create programming to educate the community on body image issues and healthy living.
Learning Happens Everywhere
- HDEV 2201–Develop a course with in the Student Development and Programs team that will help us advocate for inclusion of multiple identities in the classroom setting, using experiential learning techniques.
- Discussing Heroines–Create a feminist reading group to include students and faculty discussing women characters in novels.
Exemplary Division of Student Affairs
- Professional Development–Participate in the National Women's Studies Association Conference, as well as local conferences (National Conference on LGBT Equality, Planned Parenthood Education Days, etc.)
- Accountability Meetings–Connect intentionally with other campus and community advocates for women and LGBT issues on campus to stay current with national trends and collaborate with their initiatives, as well as hold ourselves accountable for what we need to be doing to support our students. Fellow advocates would include the SMUPD, Psychological Services for Women, The Eating Disorders and Body Image group, Women's and Gender Studies, etc.