Courtney Wolfe said she believes that to meet her full potential, she should go to medical school.
Instead, she intends to complete a nursing degree, because going to medical school would take too long if she wants to get married and have a family before she’s 35.
“It’s not that I want to have kids now, but if I tried to become a doctor, I wouldn’t be able to become a mother for a really long time,” said Wolfe, a sophomore in psychology. “It seems easier for guys to become doctors and have a family at the same time.”
Women at the U struggle with a lot of issues in college and their careers, said Debra Daniels, director of the Women’s Resource Center.
“(College) is a time when women are leaving home for the first time and dealing with a wide range of problems,” Daniels said.
The center is open to all women on campus and community members and offers support groups, individual and group counseling and other resources. Much like the U Counseling Center, the resource center has trained staff that can meet with and counsel students.
Candace Christensen, a graduate student who works as a counselor for the center, sees students, staff and faculty come in with all sorts of problems.
“Oftentimes someone comes in with a concern, and we find out there’s a lot more contributing to it,” she said.
Christensen works with about five to six clients every semester and continues individual counseling with them as they need it. She said she often sees women who have been sexually assaulted.
Dating, body image and academic concerns are also common topics in counseling sessions. Many women have learned to hate their bodies and other aspects of themselves, Christensen said. Some students on campus say it’s hard to deal with the pressure to date and be pretty.
“I think every woman deals with beauty issues and struggling to be pretty enough,” Wolfe said.
Courtney Brueckner, a senior in English, said she is glad that there is a place like the Women’s Resource Center for women to go if they need help or feel pressured.
“I think it’s a good idea to have the resource center there,” she said. “Feminism isn’t over. There are still a lot of things to be done to correct the image people have of women.”
Staff members at the center are also trained on a weekly basis to work with women who have had traumatic experiences. Anyone who has been raped or sexually assaulted should come to the center, Daniels said.
Daniels said women who are in abusive relationships should know four things they can do:
— Recognize the relationship is abusive
— Walk away from it
— Realize that there is a range of services on campus to help them
— Call police or others to help
The resource center organized a group called Peers Educating to End Rape that works around campus to educate students about rape and sexual violence.
Although staff counselors specialize in women’s issues, counselors are also prepared to work with men on social issues and other aspects of their lives.
After-hours programs
The resource center offers programs four days a week to help students work through issues such as body image and peer pressure.
The Monday session, “Hand to Hand,” offers women on campus an opportunity to share experiences and problems within their lives.
Women of color on campus also have a place to discuss racial issues and other problems they face every day. The session group for “Women of Color” meets Tuesdays and offers resources to women and allows them to talk about their different backgrounds and experiences at the U.
Women facing negative body image issues can find help at the “Body Politics” session the Resource Center offers.
“We work with women to deconstruct images of women from the media, and we look at how our body image is connected to all other aspects of our life,” said Christensen, who leads the Body Politics group with training coordinator Donna Hawxhurst. The group meets every Wednesday at the center.
The center also offers a group for lesbian and bisexual women. The session is more seclusive, and any women interested in attending must first meet with a member of the center and pre-register for the class.
Scholarships
The resource center works with organizations off campus to secure scholarships for both men and women.
“We provide over $123,000 in scholarship money to students, the majority of which goes to women,” Daniels said.
The Osher Reentry Scholarship provides $2,000 to about 25 students. The Women’s Club Scholarship is specifically for women in their junior and senior years at the U. The scholarship is worth $2,000 for the school year.
These scholarships are meant to help men and women with financial problems, Daniels said.
Besides the scholarships, the resource center helps students with financial struggles pay for books and other school necessities. Students can petition the center for emergency funds if they can show proof of their need.
Marta Nielsen, a freshman in urban planning, said that she feels it’s better to be a woman at the U because of the added scholarship opportunities.
“I personally think that it’s more to my advantage to be a woman in college,” she said.
Middle and high school outreach
In an attempt to reach out to women before college, the center started a program called Go-Girlz four years ago to help girls in junior high and high school with issues they face and to help them prepare for college.
“We target girls that are the first generation in their family to go to college, are racial and ethnic minorities or come from low-income families,” Daniels said.
Go-Girlz helps girls prepare to take the ACT test, fill out financial-aid forms and offers free tutoring to help with high school classes. Some of the high school girls who were in the program when it first started now attend the U, Daniels said.