Resources & Committees

This page follows the history of women’s resources and committees at Davidson College, starting with the Women’s Center in 1980. Through creating this page, we found Davidsonian articles were the best archival resources for tracking the evolution of this aspect of student life. Often these student perspectives were the only archival resource available that could accurately capture the atmosphere on Davidson’s campus at the time. On this page, we hope to center student perspectives by spotlighting these articles as meaningful artifacts.

 

 

Davidson Women's Center

 

The Davidson Women's Center was created in 1980 to address a multitude of needs expressed by female students. Not only was the Center a meeting place for women to gather and speak about gendered issues at Davidson College, the Center was also “perimeter housing” for several female students.

 

Perimeter housing involved the conversion of several faculty homes into student housing (usually limited to fewer than 10 students) as the adoption of coeducation in 1972 created a need for increased housing options for female students. When the Women’s Center was greenlit as a study center for women's honors students in the spring of 1980, several members of the Council on Campus and Religious Life questioned how effective the Women’s Center would be in serving the community, as well as if a women’s organization should even have a perimeter house of their own ("Objections Arise Over Women's House", 1980). 

 

 

Crowe, Jim. “Objections Arise Over Women’s House .” The Davidsonian, 18 April 1980.

The center will be in the house next door to the President’s, where Biology Professor David Kimmel now lives. Eight to ten women will live there next year, and the center will accommodate seminars and receptions, according to Housing Director Bill Bolding(...)Bolding said the center was created “to give some flexibility to women” in their housing options. Women chose only from Cannon, Little, and Basement Carnegie on campus and had only four single rooms available to them, compared to 32 for men. (...)

(...) Associate Dean of Students and Committee on Women’s Concerns Chairman Sue Ross said she hoped the women in the center will form a “nucleus” for discussions of women’s issues. The center would work together with the Union minorities committee to organize programs, she added.

 

The Davidson Women’s Center was in the Kimmel House at 420 N. Main Street. Six female honor students lived in the house during the Center’s two-year run ("Davidson College Women's Center, Fall and Winter Term Financial Statement and Budget Proposal for 1981-1982"). 

 

Davidson Women’s Center programming included a reception honoring female faculty and staff, movie showings, as well as guest lectures by leaders like Susan Laurie, a poet, author, and director of  the Berkeley Women Writers Workshop at UCLA ("Davidson College Women’s Center, Fall and Winter Term Expenditures, 1980-81"). At the invitation of the Center, Laurie delivered a talk on "Pornography and the Myth of Women" to the campus. Laurie also led a creative writing workshop and discussion on "Women in Literature." The events of the week are described in the Davidsonian article below.

 

Along with guest lecturers, the Women's Center served as the meeting place for several student organizations; Davidson College’s chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women), the DCF (Davidson Christian Fellowship), and the Open Sesame Food Co-op. We derive most of this information from the Women's Center's financial statement and budget proposal for the 1981-1982 school year which also included a summary of events and their costs from the past year, and a statement of purpose for the Women's Center.

 

From the Davidson College Women's Center, Fall and Winter Term Financial Statement and Budget Proposal to CCRL for 1981-1982. 

 

The purpose of the Women's Center is to serve all women at Davidson College by supporting their personal growth and by encouraging inquiry into issues which directly affect women. The Center seeks to promote emotional and political development by providing a meeting place, resources and progressive programming.

 

The Women's Center requested $2500 in order to pay for the next year's events, but the Activities Tax Council only offered the organization $750 in event funds. This lack of funding was one of the factors that led to the closure of the Center in 1982 despite the best efforts of the Center's organizers. 

 

Another factor was feedback from female students outside the Women's Center. This feedback indicated they would be better served by another women's eating house. This sentiment is communicated in the proposal for Warner Hall which was submitted in Spring 1982. Warner would become the second women's eating house at Davidson the following year ("Warner Hall Proposal," 1982). 

 

The Women’s Center was short-lived, but its absence as a resource and gathering space deeply impacted former members. The Davidsonian article below describes the closure of the Center, and includes the perspective of Lisa Brawley (Davidson College Class of 1986), who served as the informal head of the Center and submitted the organization’s original proposal.  

 

Gulyn, Peter. “Women’s Center to Be Union Committee Next Year .” The Davidsonian , 8 April 1982.

"The Women’s Center “was ignored” by the campus, and after a time, members “lost their motivation,” (Brawley) said. “As a building, a place where people live, the Women’s Center did not meet the needs of the campus. A Women’s Concerns Committee has more credibility,” Lisa said. "Publicity and visibility are very important. If the committee gets interest generated, then maybe there could be a full-time thing" in the future, she said. "I think there might be enough interest later. I'd like to see it as a community center (rather than solely College sponsored.) That would be more exciting ... There is much more to being a woman than being a student."

 

After 1982, the housing, social, and advocacy services once centralized in the Women’s Center were divided across campus: 

 

• Kimmel House became the Alumni House. Today, it is known as the Nancy Blackwell Alumni House. 

• Warner Hall, the second women’s eating house, was formed in 1982 as a social organization for women on campus. 

• The Union Board funding previously for the Women's Center was now used on the “Committee for Women’s Concerns,” which would take the Center’s place as an advocacy group and resource for female students on campus. 

 

Committee on Women's Concerns

 

After the closure of the Women’s Center, the Committee for Women’s Concerns was instituted as a student-led organization that would fulfill the same functions the Center once did--hosting guest lecturers, organizing regular meetings, and providing students with a platform to speak on issues facing women at Davidson.

 

Though this would be the first committee for female students at Davidson, the Women’s Concerns Committee had actually been instituted in 1980 by President Samuel Spencer. Spencer's version of the Women’s Concerns Committee was a faculty-led working group that met to make recommendations to help the College “continue on a constructive route and ensure full participation by women in the life of the College.”

 

 

The faculty-led “Women’s Concerns Committee” was founded to identify issues and find concrete solutions to women’s integration into Davidson College.  By comparison, the mission of the student-led Women's Concerns Committee was to promote discussion and awareness of women’s experiences both at Davidson and in the world at large, continuing the legacy of the Women's Center. 

 

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of coeducation at Davidson in 1983, the Women's Concerns Committee organized a "Celebrate Women: Ten Years of Women at Davidson College" week of events. According to a January 14, 1983 Davidsonian article on the week's events, the celebration included "four days of speeches, films, and disucssion on topics ranging from social justice to motherhood, from women writers to equal access admissions." Sherburne Laughlin (Davidson College Class of 1983) was Chair of the Women's Concerns Committee, and shares her thoughts on the event in the article below. 

 

Kiss, Elizabeth. “Celebrate Women; Anniversary of Coeducation Inspires Week’s Events .” The Davidsonian , 14 January 1983.

Celebrate Women is the year's major project for the new Union Committee on Women's Concerns, chaired by senior Sherburne Laughlin. Rusk and Warner Hall eating houses, Union Speakers and Gallery Committees, the Chaplain's office, and the English Department also contributed to the programs. The week is a "concentrated effort to arouse awareness of women's issues," Laughlin said. "We've done a lot of good programming earlier in the year, but this is a chance to pull together and hit as many interests as possible." (...) 

Ellen Papadeas, student organizer and chairperson of the Women's Concerns Committee, writes about the organization's purpose in an excerpt from the Committee's first 1983 newsletter below. 

 

Papadeas, Ellen. Women’s Concerns Committee Newsletter. March 16, 1983. 

 

The committee wants to promote awareness about women’s issues. Interaction between the campus and community, and understanding between men and women. The committee is not for women only; it is not for just those who hold feminist beliefs; it is for everyone who is involved in Davidson life.

 

The newsletter also describes some early ideas for Committee events. These ideas included a rape prevention seminar, a potluck dinner with the community, and a get-together with women from Queens College. 

 

On April 6, 1983, the Women's Concerns Committee and Y Student Service Corps organized a panel for Davidson students to discuss "myths of homosexuality" with the Director of Student Housing, Bill Bolding, staff psychologist, John Wheeler, and three representatives of the Charlotte Gay Community. This event was notable as an early example of postive representation of the LGBTQ+ community at Davidson College ("Bolding, Wheelher, Gay Activists Address Homosexuality," 1983). It also marked the first of many collaborations in programming between women's student organizations and LGBTQ+ student organizations. Later, this could be seen in the 1990's as the Gender Resource Center would be the home base for the Women's Concerns Committee and FLAG (Friends of Lesbians and Gays). 

 

Gender Resource Center

 

In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of coeducation, campus discussion began to question if there had been enough advancement made in resources available to female-identifying students.

 

This brought renewed interest in bringing sororities to campus in the late 1990’s. Sororities were a controversial topic, as many worried they would harm eating houses. Despite this fear, for the first time in Davidson’s history sororities became a real possibility as many students and alumni felt the growing diversity of women on campus called for a greater diversity of women’s organizations. 

 

In the Winter 1997 edition of the Davidson Journal, Ann Culp (Davidson College Class of 2000) addresses the appeal of bringing sororities to campus, but Culp also argues that a Women’s Resource Center would be a more valuable addition than Greek Life as the Center could be a centralized safe space for students of all genders to gather and find resources across campus. 

 

Culp, Ann. “What Do the Women of Davidson College Want?” Davidson Journal, Winter 1997, p. 80.

 

Yes, the eating house system is not adequately responding to the needs of women at Davidson, as the debate over sororities has demonstrated. There is a need for something more, a room with art on the walls, comfortable chairs, and reference materials available; a permanent space, unlike the sororities which would meet in Chambers building if they came to Davidson; a place which didn’t compete with the eating house system, but instead would complement that system while hosting programs that appealed to women of all social backgrounds. Videos, books, magazines and pamphlets on issues related to gender and sexuality are currently dispersed throughout the campus; in addition, there are also numerous faculty who write on issues of gender. 

On April 2, 1998, an public discussion took place at Davidson College regarding the establishment of a Women’s Resource Center on campus, as can be seen in the flyer above. Students voiced their support for the potential Women’s Resource Center and pitched their vision for the resources and programming the future Center could hold.

 

In the April 7, 1998 Davidsonian article about the discussion, student activist Tina Kanter, President of the Rape Awareness Committee, discussed the ways in the Center would align with and support the contemporary activism occurring on campus; in particular, the Take Back the Night Protest, an event against sexual violence that had a high turnout from the student body the month prior.

 

 

These open forums proved a need for a center that could provide resources, host student organization meetings, and organize progressive programming related to both gender and sexuality. In the next year, debate arose over the naming of the “Women’s Resource Center." Focusing solely on female-identifying students could potentially invalidate the organization’s mission of supporting students of all genders and sexualities. 

 

The Women’s Center thus became the Gender Resource Center and was officially approved by President Vagt on October 20, 1998 ("Vagt Approves Gender Resource Center," 1998). The Gender Resources Committee was made up of students including Ann Culp (Davidson College Class of 2000), Tommy Ross (Davidson College Class of 1999), and Elisabeth Mulphers (Davidson College Class of 1999). These students were essential to envisioning the Gender Resource Center's programs and purpose, and in the Davidsonian article below, they discuss what the Center means to them and how it differed from the defunct Women’s Center.

 

Arthur, Carrie. “Vagt Approves Gender Resource Center .” The Davidsonian, 20 October 1998.

In response to criticism of the center being unncecessary, a feminist haven, or exclusive, Culp said that it "is open to everyone." Malphurs wants the center to expand beyond the boundaries of the college community: "We eventually see the center being opened up to the whole community." (...) 

The center is a "challenge to the community to look at things like gender and to use it (and) to think about voices in the classroom, Patterson Court, day-to-day life at Davidson." Culp summarized, "the College has decided that issues of gender are enough to create a space."

Malphurs feels that the change in the original name of the Women's Center to Gender Resource signifies the inclusiveness of the Center. She said, "issues that should be called gender issues are called women's issues," and Malphurs wants a center to adresss "issues of femininity and masculinity."

The Center was founded in late 1998 and began initial operations on the first floor of Belk Residence Hall. Carrie Arthur of the Women's Issues Committee (which had been renamed from the Women's Concerns Committee), described some of the early amenitities of the Center's space in their organizational newsletter. This included a library of books donated by the Women's Issues Commitee. Arthur also wrote about the evolution of the Gender Resource Center as a staff writer of the Davidsonian. 

 

 

The official opening of the Center was approved on January 28, 1999, as seen in the flyer below. The phrase, "Gender; it's not just for women anymore" emphasizes the inclusionary mission of the Center to support all genders and sexualities, and how the new Center sought to differentiate themselves from the Women's Center of the past. 

 

Additional student organizations that used the GRC as a meeting place included the Bridges Program (a mentorship program for female students), the Eating Disorders Support Group, FLAG (Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and the Rape Awareness Committee (GRC Webpage, 1999). 

 

In the late 1990s, the Gender Resource Center started using the internet to update members and promote their organization's mission:

The Davidson College Gender Resource Center serves as a welcoming environment that seeks to enhance the quality of life of all Davidson students by fostering community, improving gender relations, and facilitating awareness of sexual diversity and gender inequalities in our community and beyond. The Center is founded upon the conviction that women's issues are pertinent not to women only, but to everyone. Problems such as rape, sexual harrasment and eating disorders, and issues such as sexual orientation, reproduction, and parenting should be addressed by the entire community if we are to effect political and social change. The Center provides the resources and support neccessary to facilitate discussion of gender, sexuality and identity; to foster intellectual, professional and personal development; and to promote equal and active participation from women and men in the college community.  

 

The Gender Resource Center remained operational on the ground floor of Belk Hall until the early-to-mid 2000s. By 2006, the Center was no longer listed on the "Student Organizations and Resources" homepage of the Davidson College website.

 

Davidson Women's Committee and 1972

After the closure of the Gender Resource Center, the Women's Issues Committee continued to organize programming meant to empower women, but the committee took different names over the following years. The committee became the "Davidson Women's Committee" sometime in the 2000s, later taking up the name of "1972" in the 2010s in reference to the first year that coeducation was introduced on campus. 

 

Below are examples of the programming organized by the two subsquent women's committees:

 

 

"1972" was last featured on the Davidson College website's "Student Organizations" page in 2022, but it is unclear whether or not the committee is still operational on campus. 

 

Lavender Lounge

 

The Lavender Lounge, an on-campus LGBTQ+ safe space and resource center for students, opened at Davidson College in 2014.  Although the Lounge is not centered on female-identifying students, it follows in the legacy of the Women's Center and the Gender Resource Center by adopting an organizational mission that supports the interests and resource needs of the current Davidson student body. 

 

The catalyst for the Lavender Lounge's creation was a 2013 campus survey that asked students, faculty, and staff about the campus climate for LGBTQ+ students at Davidson College. The survey showed that although there was a high percentage of Queer students at Davidson College, there was a lack of centralized LGBTQ+ resources, leaving many students feeling isolated and invisible within the Davidson College community ("LGBTQ Resource Center and Lounge Opens Friday, 2013").

 

Dylan Goodman (Davidson College Class of 2016) assisted in the Lavender Lounge's founding. In his oral history interview for the "Jewishness at Davidson" Project, Goodman speaks about the limited resources available for Queer students at Davidson. This partly inspired the Lavender Lounge. Specifically, Goodman mentions You Are Not a Stranger Here [Yanash] and Queers and Allies [Q&A], the two most prominent LGBTQ+ student organizations at Davidson College at the time, whose meetings were eventually hosted at the Lavender Lounge. 

 

Dylan Goodman: I came out officially my sophomore spring. So that was also really the focus of my identity development, really desperately needing resources for Queer people and for myself. And if you think there weren’t Jewish resources [at Davidson College]— Hello, Oh my God, [the abesence of Queer resources] was bad. Like literally, You're Not A Stranger Here was, like, it. Q&A, the Queer student association, was mostly led by allies, honestly, and it didn't have a lot of visibility. 

 

In the Davidson News article below,  Goodman speaks about the neccessity of the Lavender Lounge and what the space uniquely brings to Davidson College student life. The article also references the Assistant Dean of Students, Becca Taylor, who was a member of the Student Government task force that proposed the Lounge in response to the LGBTQ+ campus-wide student survey. Taylor helped to curate a new library of books, movies, and other Queer resources for the Lounge's collection, similar to how the resource collections of the Davidson Women's Center and the Gender Resource Center were curated in order to align with their respective missions before opening. 

 

 

Beyond the Lavender Lounge, there are a wide variety of resources and support systems for female- identifying Davidson College students across campus. According to Kayla Hood, Assistant Director of Student Diversity and Inclusion at Davidson College, students can reach out to the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department to learn more. 

 

 

Bibliography:

• Arthur, Carrie. “Women’s Resource Center Possible; Strong Student Interest May Lead to Creation of Center.” The Davidsonian, 7 Apr. 1998.
• Arthur, Carrie. “Vagt Approves Gender Resource Center .” The Davidsonian, 20 Oct. 1998. 
• Arthur, Carrie. "Three New Groups Complement Existing Organizations." Women's Issues Committee Newsletter, Davidson College Archives and Special Collections. 4 Nov. 1998. 
• "Bolding, Wheeler, Gay Activists Address Homosexuality." Guilford, Roxanna. The Davidsonian. 8 April 1983. 
• Crowe, Jim. “Objections Arise Over Women’s House .” The Davidsonian, 18 Apr. 1980.
• Culp, Ann. “What Do the Women of Davidson College Want?” Davidson Journal, Winter 1997, p. 80.
• "Gender Resource Center Promotional Pamphlet," c. 2000. Gender Resource Center Davidsoniana File,  Davidson College Archives. Davidson, NC. 
• Gulyn, Peter. “Women’s Center to Be Union Committee Next Year .” The Davidsonian , 8 Apr. 1982.
• Davidson College Women's Center, Fall and Winter Term Financial Statement and Budget Proposal to CCRL for 1981-1982. 
• Kiss, Elizabeth. “Celebrate Women; Anniversary of Coeducation Inspires Week’s Events .” The Davidsonian , 14 Jan. 1983.
• "LGBTQ Resource Library and Lounge Opens Friday," Davidson News. Oct. 17, 2014. 
• Mann, Jeff. “Pornography Exposed .” The Davidsonian, 16 Jan. 1981.
• Papadeas, Ellen. Women’s Concerns Committee Newsletter. March 16, 1983.
• "Memorandum to: Dr, Sue Ross, Coach Pat Miller, Mr, Tony Boon, Prof. Charles Cornwell, Prof. Ruth Ault, Prof. Lou Ortameyer, Ms. Katherine Allen, Mr. Vincent Long, Ms. Kirby Owen. From: Pres. Spencer." 12 March, 1980.  Women’s Concerns Committee Davidsoniana File.  Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• "Davidson College Women’s Center, Fall and Winter Term Expenditures 1980-81." 30 March, 1981. RG: 6/14.4, SGA Councils- Activities Tax, 1981. Davidson College, Davidson, NC. 
• “Davidson College Women's Center, Fall and Winter Term Financial Statement and Budget Proposal for 1981-1982,” 30 March, 1981. RG: 6/14.4, SGA Councils- Activities Tax, 1981-1982. Davidson College Archives, Davidson NC.
• “The Newsletter of Women’s Concerns,” 16 March, 1983. Women’s Concerns Committee Davidsoniana File. Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• "Women’s Resource Center Flyer", 2 April 1998. Women’s Concerns Committee Davidsoniana File. Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• “Gender Resource Center Flyer,” 28 January 1999. Gender Resource Center Davidsoniana File. Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• “Davidson Women’s Committee Politics Luncheon Flyer,” 2 November 2008. Women’s Concerns Committee Davidsoniana File. Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• “Post-A-Secret 1972 Event Flyer,” 15-19 February 2010. Women’s Concerns Committee Davidsoniana File, Davidson College Archives, Davidson, NC. 
• Goodman, Dylan. “Interview with Dylan Goodman ’16.” Interview by Krutkovish, Dylan and Taylor Drake. 16 March 2019. History of Jewishness at Davidson, https://davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/01DCOLL_INST:01DCOLL/122853.