UC Seeks Input on Women's Center

For years, student activists have fought a battle to build a campus women’s center by pitching tents and staging protest rallies. But with such a center slated to open this fall, students can now make themselves heard with a simple click of the mouse.

The Undergraduate Council (UC) is currently soliciting student input on the women’s center through a survey on the council’s web site. The results of the survey will help inform a position paper that the UC will present to the College administration, said council member Lauren P.S. Epstein ’07.

According to UC President John S. Haddock ’07, the council initiated the survey on its own, but it formulated the questions “in very close coordination” with Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd.

Kidd is chair of the committee formed to hire a director for the center.

Kidd wrote in an e-mail that “the survey will not be used to hire the director since we are well along in that process already.”

But she added that “the opinions collected on the survey will certainly be of great interest” to the center’s future director.

“The UC showed me the questionnaire and I thought it was a fine idea,” Kidd wrote.

The survey, at uc.fas.harvard.edu, asks students to describe the discussion forums, resources, and atmosphere they would like to see in the women’s center. The survey also asks students to rank the importance of certain qualities of the center, such as offering “hangout space,” centralizing information on campus resources, and providing meeting space for student groups. Other, more logistical questions ask students what time of day they would visit the center and whether they would come for food, television, or computer access.

But the survey never asks students whether or not they support the idea of having a women’s center on campus in the first place.

“We obviously are aware of the fact that there are students on campus who do not think that there should be a women’s center,” Epstein said. She added that students who are not supportive of a women’s center on campus can share their opinions in the free-response sections of the survey.

“In putting out a survey, we’re not making a value judgment about a women’s center,” she said. “We’re simply trying to determine what the student body would like to see in a women’s center if there is one.”

Jieun Baek ’09, the council member from Straus Hall who created the survey, said that she expects the survey to be available for the next two to three weeks and that the response thus far has been “active.”

Baek also plans over the next few days to e-mail a survey with questions tailored to student groups involved in women’s issues.

Baek said that student groups not involved with women’s issues but interested in sharing their opinions about the women’s center are welcome to contact her for a survey.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.