The Women’s Resource Center has found a new home on main campus.
Housed in the Student Services building, the Women’s Resource Center provides resources to support the female population at Texas A&M. The center’s website highlights how it provides an array of services and programs, covering topics from breastfeeding to salary negotiation, in an effort to give transparency on the adversity women face today and how to address the issues.
“The mission of the Women’s Resource Center at Texas A&M University is to pursue equity and enhance the campus climate for women through visibility, advocacy, support, and programming,” the website says. “The Center advocates by educating campus and community constituencies on women’s issues and functions as a resource and referral center.”
Joy Kim, a kinesiology freshman, said the center can have a profound impact on females on campus.
“The center is an incredibly important facet of student services on campus,” Kim said. “It addresses problems that women encounter that aren’t widely discussed, such as coping with pregnancy while being a student. It also provides the female students of the 21st century access to resources for a new world, one where women are more involved in STEM fields or where they feel comfortable sharing their experiences with sexual harassment.”
Kaylee Korth, an international studies senior and president of the American Association of University Women at A&M, said the Women’s Resource Center is important, given A&M’s history as an all-male university.
“I think it’s really important to have a center on campus whose sole purpose is to provide opportunity for growth for the women on campus and provide educational resources,” Korth said. “When you look at the history of A&M and how it started as an all-male military school, I think it’s important that we have a place just devoted to women to help lift our voices up, especially because of all of those all-male dominated structures that kind of exist in some places.”
According to their website, the center offers programs and services directed at a diverse list of issues females face, from abuse to LGBTQ+ centered topics. It aims to help women grow and fosters an environment of support through various issues women encounter during their time in college and life after.
Through programs such as the Silent Witness Project, Denim Day, These Hands Don’t Hurt, Walk a Mile in Her Shoes and the Women’s Leadership Forum & Women’s Progress Awards, the center focuses on “serving as a hub for information, and resources pertinent to women on campus,” according to their website.
Korth said she appreciates the Women’s Resource Center’s ability to promote events and services dedicated to women.
“I think that because the Women’s Resource Center is a part of the university that carries a lot of weight behind it, so they’re able to put on a lot of bigger type events, like Elect Her … and I think that’s something that couldn’t necessarily happen without the Women’s Resource Center helping,” Korth said. “I think having a place on campus that’s just devoted to women and educating us is super awesome, and I think they’re doing a really good job at doing that.”