Speakers at the closing event for Northwestern Women’s Center’s 25th anniversary celebrations had a singular message Thursday: Women at NU have made significant progress in 25 years but still have a long way to go.
About 75 women attended “The state of the University for women” at Norris University Center’s Northwestern Room. Women representing NU’s faculty, staff and students gave statements about their respective experiences at NU.
Cara Tuttle Bell, the director of programs for the Women’s Center, said the speakers’ message reinforced the need for Women’s Center programming.
“It’s why we’re here,” Bell said. “It’s why we were created, although 25 years ago that looked very different than it did now. But we think that we have plenty left to do. We’re not at 50 percent everywhere, so we haven’t attained equity.”
Medill senior Kelsey Sheridan, a member of NU College Feminists, spoke positively about many aspects of her NU experience but said the school still has work to do when it comes to gender issues.
“I have always felt that I had an equal place here at Northwestern, at least in an academic setting, and out of class too, women seem to receive great institutional support from the University,” Sheridan said. “But even on this occasion for celebration, it would be irresponsible not to discuss how the University can improve.”
Sheridan discussed the lack of resources for mothers on campus, which provides an “institutional barrier to higher education for moms at Northwestern.”
Sheridan also referenced the “microaggressions” committed on campus against female students.
Psychology Prof. Alice Eagly shared a presentation with a number of statistics on the state of gender diversity at NU. Eagly said 50 percent of NU’s deans are women but just 19 percent of department chairs are female. Twenty-eight percent of tenured and tenure-track faculty are female, up from 16 percent in 1986.
Eagly said compared to NU’s peer institutions in the Ivy League and the Big Ten, “it looks like 28 percent is not outstanding.”
Renee Redd, the director of the Women’s Center, said the fact that the Women’s Center has gotten as far as it has is an accomplishment in itself.
“The fact that we established the Women’s Center in 1986 is quite an advancement,” Redd said. “Most of those Women’s Centers (at other schools) predominantly serve students, but I think it’s a really nice benefit that we serve students, staff and faculty.”
Bell said the Women’s Center invited women in different positions on campus to speak Thursday to reflect the diversity of women the center aims to serve.
“We are a Women’s Center that serves all three of those groups, so we always are trying to do that,” she said. “For a closing of the 25th anniversary year, we were speaking to each of those audiences.”
