Dispelling myths of WRC

By Cherry Kang, Special to the On-Line Forty-Niner

Thursday, January 21, 1999

Since its creation during the 1970s, the Women's Resource Center has struggled to dispel the misconception that it was a hotbed where feminists gathered to release tension.

Today, the center has successfully laid that notion to rest as more students have learned about what the facility represents and its purpose.

"The center is a wonderful network of the university and community that join together to put behind discrimination and misunderstandings that they have experienced from the past in society," Office Manager Barbara Sinclair said.

The Women's Resource Center has grown and developed into a full-fledged center that offers professional one-on-one help, a library with more than 2,000 books and various programs to all students.

"The center is a place for both genders and people from different philosophical, spiritual and ethnic backgrounds to receive the help they need," Sinclair said.

The staff consists of full-time trained professionals available five days a week who are involved with crisis intervention and other aspects of study. Students of federal work-study programs, interns and volunteers also assist students.

Many of the people who came to the center to seek help were young women, mothers re-entering college, women in their 70s and lesbians, Sinclair said.