Students Urge Women's Center

Calling for a fully-staffed and funded women's center at Harvard, student activists have collected over 1000 signatures in a petition drive over the last two weeks.

The petition's organizers said they plan to submit the signatures to Harvard and Radcliffe administrators after Commencement in an effort to convince them that there is widespread undergraduate and graduate interest in a center.

"We want to show administrators that there is broad-based support for this issue," said Sophie A. Volpp '85, a third-year graduate student. Volpp said she expects the petition drive to collect even more signatures in the fall.

Students pressing for a women's center said the single room provided by Radcliffe for use by undergraduates is too small, inconveniently located and inaccessible. And in the absence of an official women's center, Women's Studies Committee Chair Olwen Hufton said many people seem to expect her program to fill the gap.

Stressing the academic nature of the Women's Studies program, Hufton said her department is unable to play the role of a central clearinghouse for undergraduate women's groups and activities.

"A women's center that would coordinate groups like Response and ECHO [Eating Concerns Hotline and Outreach] is critically needed," Hufton said, adding, "it would complement the kind of work that we do."

The student petition calls for the creation of a multi-room facility, preferably located in or near Harvard Yard and staffed by a paid director. Aside from acting as a central information and support service for women, such a center would provide Harvard with a new forum for discussing issues of gender and society, organizers said yesterday.

In an interview with The Crimson last week, Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson said it would be "premature" to announce her position on a women's center at this time. She said she is giving careful study to the matter and believes that the concerns prompting the students' proposals are valid.

"The proposals that have been made have major organizational, space and cost implications," Wilson said. "It's important that the progress that we make will be in ways that we can handle well."

But beyond their quest for a new, more substantial facility for undergraduate women, activists said they are