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News

WRC marks one year of service to UH

Center plans to focus on health seminars, expand its presence

By Tina Marie Macias
Senior Staff Writer

One year ago, UH opened the doors to the Women's Resource Center -- and the center has come a long way since then.

"We went from having folding tables and chairs to having a nice, comfortable facility where people can come in to talk to us about issues ... they can come in and study or just find a nice place to be," WRC Director Susan Rosthal said.

Rosthal said the center was originally created to help women on campus find information on a variety of topics and issues, and obtain confidential referrals to appropriate campus and community resources.

"UH is a very big campus, and a lot of people don't know all the resources that are available," Rosthal said. "It's import that we're here so people have one central point where they can come in and say, ‘I have a problem with such-and-such.'"

WRC offers information for women on everything from legal advice, to parenting to health.

"The issues for women -- women commuter students, especially -- are important," UH psychologist Cecilia Sun said at a WRC anniversary open house Thursday afternoon. "On a campus such as ours, they balance multiple roles -- school, parenting, healthy relationships."

In its first year, the WRC hosted several "brown bag lunches," short lunch-hour seminars addressing women's issues.

The most successful programs were seminars on domestic violence and sexual assault, and the brown bag lunch in honor of breast cancer awareness month.

"We had three survivors who spoke, and one of those survivors was a 22-year-old student," Rosthal said. "I think people really need to understand that you don't need to be old to get breast cancer."

The center is planning more health seminars for its second year, Rosthal said. On Feb. 9, it will host a program on heart disease and women.

"Women have different symptoms of heart attacks than men have," Rosthal said. "Most people hear the list for men, they never hear how it differs for women, and heart disease is one of the main killers of post-menopausal women."

Rosthal said she wants to include more speakers from the community in WRC programs, expand the center to help more people and alert the University about its facilities.

She also wants to build on the first year and increase relationships with other services on campus.

"(The counseling center) is wanting to work more collaboratively with the women's resources," Sun said. "They're wonderful in terms of outreach and being a primary referral source to resources across campus, and I think there's a lot of joint programming that we could do to reach more women students."
 

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