Wellesley Centers for Women holds 25th anniversary symposium

The Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) will hold a symposium Nov. 12 in celebration of its 35th anniversary. The program titled "Reflections, Conversations, New Directions Symposium", will feature seminars that explore topics such as equitable education, gender, sexuality and adolescent girls through a cultural lens.

Dr. Susan McGee Bailey '63 is the executive director of the WCW, professor of women's and gender studies and education at the College, as well as the organizer of the symposium. She sees the event as a chance for the public to see the work that WCW has focused on for the past few decades. "What we hope to do is to have an opportunity to showcase the type of work we've done for the last 35 years and to make that work available for people who are interested," McGee Bailey said.

Speakers at the symposium include associate director of the WCW Peggy McIntosh, author and speaker Jean Kilbourne, former director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality Deb Tolman and senior research scientist of the WCW Nan Stein. "The people who are presenting are all people who are currently here or who have been here," McGee Bailey said.

The symposium, which expected about 100 people to register online, now expects about 300 people to attend. "If students are interested in coming by, we definitely would welcome them, [but] just [give] warning that the space may be pretty tight," McGee Bailey said.

Students who attend the symposium can expect to learn not only about the topic of their seminar but also about the general mission of the WCW. "If students attend I think they'll learn a bit more about the range and the scope of the centers," McGee Bailey said.

According to McGee Bailey, the symposium covers a wide variety of topics and issues, all of which should be of interest to students. The symposium will touch on all three of the focus areas for the WCW: the advancement of women's rights and status, the education, care and development of children and youth and emotional well-being.

The Centers also addresses wider issues such as diversity, equality and experiences of women from many different backgrounds. These concerns are demonstrated by the Centers' wider focus on issues of diversity and equity as well as its emphasis on experiences and perspectives of women from different backgrounds. McGee Bailey said that the symposium will touch on all of these topics.

Students eagerly anticipate the symposium. "I'm excited about the seminar about families because I think it's really important for people to see that non-traditional families can function well, just as well as traditional families," Mylena Vazquez '14 said.

Ana Medrano '13 will attend for WCW's choice of guest speakers. "I think it's exciting because we go to a women's college, and we always have guest speakers, but they don't always pertain to women specifically," Medrano said.

The seminars offered at the symposium include Women's Lives: Past, Present and Future, which will be offered by Barbara Gold Smith '53. Gold Smith is an awardwinning author and historian. She wrote "Other Powers: the Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull"—soon to be a major motion picture—and "Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie." Judith Jordan and McGee Bailey will also be presenting. Jordan is the director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at WCW and an assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is one of the founding theorists of Relational-Cultural Theory.

In her talk, McGee Bailey will speak about her work with the Centers. "I'll be speaking about the work of the centers over these 35 years and where I see our work going in the future," she said. And students relish the chance to learn more about the Centers' work. "The fact that we have this opportunity is really great," Medrano said.

Later in the evening, the WCW will host its 35th Anniversary Gala at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The gala will honor the work of the Centers as well as McGee Bailey, who plans to retire at the end of this year. Guest speakers include at the gala will include Anita Hill, Lynn Sherr '63, Luis Ubiñas, Linda Wertheimer '65 and Janet Wu. Hill is a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Sherr is an awardwinning former correspondent for ABC News. Ubiñas is president of the Ford Foundation and Wertheimer is senior national correspondent at National Public Radio. Wu currently is Chair of the WCW 35th Anniversary Committee and a political and investigative reporter at WCVB-TV.

Through the symposium, McGee Bailey hopes to make the work of the WCW, which she calls, "a large outreach arm of the college" even more public. By increasing its visibility and celebrating its success, she hopes to continue the research that the Centers' have done for decades. "The work will continue. We are raising funds as we speak with the goal of $3.5 million," said McGee Bailey.