CU-Boulder Women's Resource Center turns 15

Before University of Colorado junior Michelle Barry took a job at the Women's Resource Center this semester, she didn't think much about her gender. When she imagined herself as an action-movie hero, she was always a guy. Her favorite character from the TV show "The Office" was Jim Halpert.

But then she applied for the co-marketing coordinator position at the WRC and began hanging out in the homey four-room office on the fourth floor of the University Memorial Center, where copies of BUST magazine hang above the computers and there's usually a spot on the comfy couches.

"I've been happier and happier about being a woman," said Barry, a studio arts major who recently brought an unfinished scarf to BitchCraft, a WRC peer group that meets twice a month to chat and knit, and has helped resurrect another bi-weekly group called Queer Women in Community.

"It makes it seem like it's a cool thing to be."

The WRC has played that role and more for 15 years. On Wednesday night, the center -- affectionately known as "The Dub" -- will hold a quinceanera celebration to mark the time since its launch in 1994.

The WRC started small. After securing funding from the CU Student Union, it hired its first director in April 1994, according to a timeline compiled by the WRC. The director was only part-time and the center's entire operation consisted of a desk in the back of another organization's office.

But it was better than what existed before. In the 1960s, there was the Women's Center, which helped women

enroll in college. At the time, however, undergraduate women were treated differently than male students; they had curfews and housemothers and were not allowed to visit men's homes. If female professors wanted to wear pants, they had to wear shirts long enough to cover their behinds.

In 1975, a group called the Women's Project created a hotline for women in crisis. But the Women's Line shut down in the 1980s due to a lack of funding from the university.

Funding was key to opening the WRC. In 1993, a now-defunct group called the Ethnic Women's Alliance asked for a 50-cent-per-student fee to fund a women's resource center. The request was granted, and that initiative eventually morphed into the WRC, which celebrated its grand opening in September 1994. By then, it already had its first peer group: Lavender Lunch, a GLBTQ group.

Today, the WRC has three permanent staff members, eight student staff members and 27 volunteers. It hosts several weekly gatherings as well as larger events, such as Sexpressions, an open-mic-type show that celebrates women's sexuality, and the Women Who Make A Difference awards.

But most of all, volunteers and staff said, it's a place for women to hang out.

"We are a hub of activity," said Tamara Williams, a CU graduate student and the WRC's graduate student coordinator. "We're a great hangout. We're a great way to meet people."

As a volunteer, CU junior Kelly Maxwell helps connect curious students to different resources. Sometimes, it's pointing them in the direction of a free pregnancy test or the on-campus counseling center. Other times, it's lending them books from the WRC's extensive library of books on body image, activism and mental health. Often, it's just having a conversation about their day.

Maxwell said it's the people of the WRC that have kept her volunteering for three years.

"This is like feminism, day to day," she said of her work at the WRC.

"We don't burn bras here. We just kind of raise awareness."