Interviewing Tech’s Women’s Resource Center

A group of students from RISE’s (Reimagine, Inspire, Serve, Empower) 2022 session pose for a photo. RISE is one of the center’s most popular programs. // Photo courtesy of the Women’s Resource Center

The Tech Women’s Resource Center hosts programming on campus with the goal of advancing gender equity and equality for all identities by providing information, support, advocacy, training and services for members of the campus community.

The center is located on the first floor of the Smithgall building, near other resource centers available to students; many of the center’s recurring events are held here. The center’s coordinator, Miranda Garcia, encourages students to visit the center to participate in these events.

“We have a lot of regular events, we have monthly events like our monthly craft circles, and we have study halls around the time that [students] have finals and midterms,” Garcia said.

Along with their more lighthearted programming, the center also provides leadership opportunities for students of different experience levels. 

The center hosts one of Tech’s First-Year Leadership Organizations (FLOs), called RISE (Reimagine, Inspire, Serve, Empower) and a new leadership opportunity for students of any year.

In reference to the RISE program, Garcia mentioned “it’s one of our biggest programs right now” and that “they just have lots of really important discussions in that group, and we’re gonna have some fun events coming up for them this semester.” 

Garcia explained that students who wanted to get involved with RISE should expect “at least a one hour meeting every week focused on consciousness raising and talking about whatever different sorts of feminist issues or feminist leadership principles they want to focus on for that week.” 

Continuing to share information on the center’s happenings, Garcia spoke of an increasingly popular on-campus event the center participates in annually — Red Goes Green.

“[Red Goes Green] is a tabling campaign to educate folks about menstrual equity and collect donations for The Period Project as well as handout sustainable menstrual products, like reusable pads and menstrual cups and raise money for The Period Project.”

According to Garcia, the Women’s Leadership Coalition “used to be just an organization for the Women’s Leadership Conference, but now they’re planning more events throughout the year than just the conference.” 

She encouraged anyone interested in shaping the future of the organization “to get involved now” because “there’s not much of a structure to it yet, so it would be a good time to sort of get involved in the planning process and help us figure out what that’s gonna look like in the future.” 

The Women’s Resource Center also provides a variety of trainings and discussions for other organizations around campus. Garcia said that “we’ve got one about interrupting sexism, which is a bystander intervention training for folks to interrupt sexism in their daily lives. We’ve also got a salary negotiation training, and there are a couple more that I’m working on.” 

Garcia encourages any interested organizations to reach out to the center to discuss possible trainings because she thinks that“it’s important that folks get that type of training and continue to have diversity and equity training outside of what is required of their office or organization throughout the year.”

When discussing the importance of the center as part of Tech’s campus, Garcia explained “there can be a bit of a narrow focus on STEM, which makes a lot of sense based on what this school is and does and that’s super important, but I also really hold to the belief that even science, technology and engineering can’t be done to the best of its potential if there is not a diversity and equity lens on what is being done.”

She continued by saying that “I think it would be awesome to see folks sort of jumping in and like going above and beyond in terms of their DEI education on campus.”

For any students who are interested in getting involved with the resource center, Garcia recommends they “stop in, hang out here, talk to folks; there’s always space. If you just want to come in to study and drink some coffee, there’s always free coffee here, fidget toys and stickers and things.” 

She finished by saying that “my door is always open so anybody can feel free to pop in, tell me what they’re interested in and what they want to be doing and we can talk about how they could get involved.” 

The Women’s Resource Center is an interactive resource for both graduate and undergraduate students looking for support, community and sisterhood. 

Although the semester is headed towards its end, there are still a few events left on their calendar and the physical center has regular hours that can be found on their website.

Students looking to get involved with the center can learn more about them on their website at womenscenter.gatech.edu or on Instagram @gtwrc.

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