The Women’s Center celebrated 20 years’ worth of progress yesterday in Riggs Library by announcing the 2011 opening of a women’s center at the School of Foreign Service’s campus in Doha, Qatar.
argaret Cerrato, director of the Qatar Liaison Office, said the center’s Qatar debut demonstrated the growing influence of the women’s empowerment movement.
“The Women’s Center there will be used like here – a space for support and help. It will also be used to facilitate discussions and it will probably be extremely helpful in introducing women there to new ideas, since they will definitely be exposed to different perspectives in classes and daily life,” Cerrato said.
onday’s celebration featured Dorothy Brown, a Georgetown history professor emerita and former provost, as well as Theresa DeGioia, honorary chair of the Women’s Center’s 20th anniversary celebration and wife of University President John J. DeGioia. Students, members of the president’s and provost’s offices, the Office of Student Affairs and the Jesuit community attended the event.
Laura Kovach, director of the Women’s Center for the past three years, spearheaded the anniversary celebration. Kovach said she has focused on widening the center’s reach, by making the Georgetown community more aware of the resources offered there.
“We wanted to make this event about the campus,” Kovach said of the capstone event of a year-long project. “We’re celebrating 20 years of being on the Hilltop, serving the work that we do to support the entire community. We really want to let folks know about our resources and our space.”
Originally housed in a converted storage closet, the center now sits in a third-floor space in the Leavey Center, where both male and female students can go for support and encouragement. Under Kovach, the center has grown into a place where students go not only to study but to find a forum for social and professional development. Toddchelle Young (COL ’12) said she felt indebted to the center.
“Being part of the center is a great thing, especially to develop yourself as a student,” Young said. “Laura has been helping me with my research, actually to formulate a thesis. And it’s great because the center is directly affiliated with a lot of programs on campus, so I find out about different events that relate to my interests too.”
Jared Watkins (COL ’11), co-chair of GU Men Creating Change which works to protect women against violence by changing campus culture, also came to celebrate the 20th anniversary to show his gratitude for the center’s welcoming atmosphere.
“Despite it being a women’s center, never have I felt unwelcome or unwanted there,” Watkins said. “Laura is a great resource and adviser, and the entire center really helps with support and guidance of any types of event at Georgetown. We even have GU Men Creating Change meetings there.”
Two years after its founding with the help of the Women’s Center, the Women Advancing Gender Equity Fellowship has forged bonds between current women students and alumnae. LiJia Gong (SFS ’08, LAW ’13), one of the founders of WAGE, said that the fellowship is designed to facilitate personal and professional mentorships.
Katherine Ross (COL ’06), a member of the WAGE board of directors, also praised the program’s progress.
“WAGE is meant to give women student leaders a place to meet for career and academic guidance from alums, but it is also for their personal development to get guidance from Georgetown grads,” Ross said.
Jeanne Lord, associate vice president for student affairs, touched on the center’s goal to support personal development in her opening speech.
“The extending reach of the center is truly unimaginable,” Lord said. “It is formed by the Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity that each person is unique. We support educational empowerment of all women and strive for the Ignatius commitment to cura personalis.”
Overlooking campus and the District, students, faculty and administrators celebrated main campus milestones while ushering in a new era for women’s empowerment at SFS-Q. Al-Daana Al-Mulla (SFS ’12), a Qatari national and SFS-Q student on exchange for the semester, highlighted the new center’s progressive approach to women’s issues.
“The inauguration of the SFS-Qatar Women’s Center is a wonderful and exciting event of historical import for Georgetown,” Al-Mulla said during the program. “It represents one of many bold, enriching initiatives for all of us to share. It’s one of many fruits of the effective global-minded partnership of my country and our university to the credit of those engaged at all levels in the vibrant life and reciprocity of two sister campuses in different parts of the world.”
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