The Women’s Center will expand with another branch on the Chicago Campus next fall, providing downtown students and faculty with counseling and women-focused lectures.

The center offers ongoing counseling for survivors of sexual assault and abuse, along with crisis intervention and support groups. It also provides community members with information on how to find food and financial assistance.

“The same issues we predominantly deal with are prevalent at the Chicago Campus too,” said Renee Redd, director of the existing Women’s Center at 2000 Sheridan Road. “The faculty and staff have been requesting our presence there for quite some time.”

Redd, who has been director for six years, said the Chicago faculty has been wanting a center on campus for as long as she’s been here.

In the past, Women’s Center staff members have tried to meet the demand for counseling from the Chicago Campus by commuting there. But the demand has grown so much that a permanent space became necessary, Redd said.

Associate Provost Jean Shedd said the center would fill a gap for women on the Chicago Campus.

“There’s no one else offering them these services,” she said. “(Counseling and Psychological Services) is down there, but there’s no one offering the kind of programming and support services that we think women on the Chicago Campus should have access to.”

Shedd said the center has been in the works since October, but the location has yet to be decided. They are considering several rooms in Abbott Hall and the Lake Shore Center.

“Space is very tight on the Chicago Campus and very few sites are available, unfortunately,” Shedd said. “Obviously we want it to be proximate to the users — to the students, faculty and staff.”

Shedd said that once the location is chosen, some minor work will have to be done before the center will be up and running for visitors.

“You have to start off small,” Redd said. “That’s how we started here.”

The center also is searching to fill a full-time position, someone who will organize speakers and programs at the Chicago branch. The current four-person staff also will be traveling between the two centers to run each program.

This month the center is conducting a random survey of women on campus — 920 faculty members, 1,800 students and 890 staff members — to determine ways both centers can improve next year. Becket Bessolo, program coordinator, said feedback about which programs work best will be vital to the new branch’s success.

Redd said the survey results, which will be ready in two months, will also show how needs on each campus might vary and how the centers will fit those needs.

She said most students know about the center’s counseling options, but not enough are aware of the lectures and conferences the center hosts.

On April 27, the center will co-sponsor a screening of “The Brandon Teena story,” the documentary on which the movie “Boys Don’t Cry” was based, and also will participate in the national “Take Our Daughter to Work Day.”

“We’re not only about victim services,” Redd said. “When that does happen, people tend to hold it in their consciousness more. But people aren’t always aware of the other things we do.”