University of California, Santa Barbara

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History of the Women’s Center

On June 12, 1974, the Ad Hoc Planning Committee of the Women’s Assembly submitted a proposal to Chancellor Vernon Cheadle recommending the establishment of a Women’s Center at UCSB. This group laid the foundation for the first Women’s Center based upon feminist principles. We applaud their initiative, vision, and perseverance. In the Fall of 1975, the UCSB Women’s Center opened its doors, funded as a one year pilot projected through the Office of the Dean of Students, located near the east entrance, on the ground where the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics now stands.

Ad Hoc Planning Committee of the Women’s Assembly:

  • Arocoles Aguilar
  • Lois Phillips
  • Elizabeth Baker
  • Ellen Pitcher
  • Elaine Fukuda
  • Lynne Riddle
  • Joyce Gould
  • Elin Pratt (Scheff)
  • Jan Keller Vera Skubic

For more than 30 years, the UCSB Women’s Center has been a place of empowerment and support, addressing the needs and providing the means for women to envision and achieve their full potential. The original mission was three-tiered: education, research, and advocacy. Leslie Zomalt, the first director of the Women’s Center, remarked on the 10th anniversary, “When we opened there was a lot of energy, a sense that ‘we did it,’ a sense of the possibilities. A very diverse group of people had come together and really accomplished something. There was enthusiasm and a feeling that, ‘no matter what happens from now on, we’ve got to hold on to this.’”

Indeed over the past three decades the UCSB Women’s Center has distinguished itself among our sister resource centers throughout the University of California system and compares favorably with centers at other top research universities across the nation. After 27 years in Building 434, across from Storke Tower, where so many women shared their journey, where artists exhibited their work, where writers, poets, and politicians imparted their message, the Women’s Center moved to its present location in the Student Resource Building. It was included as a vital component in the original charter by the students who conceived of a building to house a myriad of resources in one place. They campaigned for the student-funded building and won.

The UCSB Women’s Center provides the campus community a multitude of resources: a comprehensive lending library including books, magazines, and videos; an art gallery; conference room available for meetings, study sessions, or presentations; the Rape Prevention Education Program; Sexual Harassment Prevention Education Program; the Re-Entry/Non-Traditional Student Resource Center; the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity; quarterly program offerings; and support groups from gender issues to being a caretaker for aging parents. There are student groups that are affiliated with the Women’s Center such as Students Stopping Rape, Men Against Rape, A.S. Women’s Commission, Take Back the Night, VOX - the Voice of Planned Parenthood, Women’s Ensemble Theater Troupe, and Women in Science and Engineering.

The Women’s Center has garnered support through coalition building with academic departments, other Student Affairs and Associated Students departments, as well as ties to the greater community as evidenced by our recognition for outstanding community service by the Santa Barbara County Women’s Commission in 2007. The Center is also supported by the Office of the Chancellor and the Executive Vice Chancellor for our signature events that feature and support our women faculty. The Office of Equal Opportunity annually funds the programming budget to bring a diverse and relevant offering each quarter.