Sarah Doyle Women's Center

The Sarah Doyle Women's Center is an organization at Brown University, founded in 1974, which "seeks to provide a comfortable, yet challenging place for students, faculty, and staff to examine the multitude of issues around gender".[1] It was named in honor of the prominent Rhode Island educator, Sarah Doyle.

About Sarah Doyle Women's Center

The Sarah Doyle Women's Center (SDWC) welcomes women and men who have interests in issues of gender and in issues that concern women in particular. The Center offers a variety of services and programs, as well as meeting space for university and community groups. The SDWC houses an art gallery, a darkroom, an extensive library and resource center, and a student lounge. It is affiliated with the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.[2]

The Sarah Doyle Gallery

The Sarah Doyle Gallery is a professional art gallery within the Women's Center. It exhibits six to seven juried shows a year, as well as an annual commencement show. The goal of the gallery is to expose Brown students to high quality professional artwork on campus. The gallery openings offer everyone the chance to interact with the artists, ask them questions, and occasionally enjoy talk from the artists. The gallery brings all kinds of diverse and interesting people from campus, the Providence, Rhode Island community, and the region into the women's center, giving them a chance to discover everything else the Women's Center at Brown has to offer.

Library

The library has over 4,000 volumes and films available to students, staff, and faculty, and subscribes to a variety of scholarly journals, news journals, and magazines.

Photo Club

The Brown Photo Club manages two student darkrooms, one in Faunce House, which is currently under construction, and one in the Sarah Doyle Women's Center. Each darkroom is equipped with two Saunders variable contrast enlargers with 4x5 capacity, and a 16x20 archival print washer. The Sarah Doyle darkroom is for printing black and white only. The work room in the Sarah Doyle has a 16x20 heat press and a matt cutter.

Emergency Resources

SDWC provides confidential crisis support and information for any Brown student dealing with sexual assault. The on-call counselor is also available to accompany a victim to the hospital.

Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Program is the main resource for helping students affected by sexual violence. Confidential services include support for a survivor or the friends of a survivor, help filing a complaint (if that is the student's choice) and educational programs for the student community. As part of the Advocates Program, SDWC staff members are trained to help any Brown student explore his/her options to address an incident of sexual assault or sexual harassment. Talking with an Advocate does not require a student to file a disciplinary complaint or pursue any specific course of action.

Sarah Doyle

In 1891, the first women were admitted to Brown University. Sarah Doyle spearheaded a drive to construct a classroom building for Brown’s women students, called "Pembroke Hall." At the dedication of Pembroke Hall on November 22, 1897, Sarah Doyle spoke what are undoubtedly her most famous words: “The women’s sphere is one of infinite and indeterminate radius.”

Sarah Doyle was a teacher and a prominent Providence clubwoman.[3] At the turn of the century, causes such as women’s education and suffrage, movements against child labor and towards a cure for tuberculosis, found an organizational and financial platform through the upper class social network of clubs. The Rhode Island Women’s Club was created in 1876 due in large part to Sarah Doyle’s efforts, as was the Rhode Island Society for the College Education of Women (RISCEW) and the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the nation’s premiere art schools.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/sarah-doyle-center/home
  2. ↑ http://www.pembrokecenter.org/research/newsletter.html Pembroke Center Newsletter
  3. ↑ http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Sarah_Doyle_Center/SarahDoyleTheWoman.html Sarah Doyle Women's Center 2006.

External links