The Campus Women’s Center is dedicated to upholding feminist ideals, opening up a space to discuss social justice issues and providing a voice to students who don’t otherwise feel acknowledged on campus Finance Coordinator Kyle Brown said Tuesday.
The Campus Women’s Center is an organization funded through segregated fees paid by students, and upholds its mission through a wide variety of programming offered to students. The center offers support groups, social justice workshops, an in-office resource library, two different child care programs and works to bring speakers to campus.
“In that sense I think that that really appeals to the ideals of the UW in furthering an understanding of not only ourselves but the world around us,” Brown said.
The largest program the center puts on is a speakers bureau, which brings a variety of different speakers to campus. The center focuses on bringing speakers with diverse experiences and perspectives to talk about relevant social justice issues that impact students.
The center works to bring speakers with different focuses every year, and in the past have centered on racism, sexism and intersectionality.
The speakers bureau is the largest program the center offers in terms of spending and the audience that it reaches. Last year’s speakers bureau included four speakers and had around 25,000 students attend both the women’s center’s events, as well as their co-sponsored events. Including speakers fees and rental costs for four speakers, the program cost about $7,000.
Other programs offered by the center include a free childcare program for student parents called Kids Night Out, in which student volunteers plan programming for kids one night a month to give their parents a break from their responsibilities, according to a Campus Women’s Center staff member who presented at the program’s budget hearing last Thursday.
The Campus Women’s Center proposed a budget of $87,736.75 for the 2016-’17 school year to help maintain these programs. The Student Services Finance Committee approved a budget of $77,163.75.
“Even with the adjustment downward we are excited to bring quality programming that addresses the relevant needs of this campus to campus” Brown said.
