Dear Editor,
I was the academic director of the Sarah Isom Center from 2004 to 2011. This fall, the directorship of the Isom Center has rotated, so I would like to record publicly my administration’s legacy, which could not have happened without the vision of Provost Emerita Carolyn Stanton, the work of former directors Skemp and Barker, committed faculty, staff, administrators and students.
When I arrived in 2004, the Center was empty except for the steering committee that had sustained it since founding director Jan Hawks’ death.
One of my major goals was to secure the Center for the future.
My hiring brought in a full-time salary for the director. My administration added the staff assistant and asked for the associate director position. It helped find an administrative home for sexual assault prevention.
It initiated the affiliate status for faculty; courses in Honors; the plenary of the student conference; and the liberal studies degree as an option for a major.
It did not advance the 2004 graduate certificate because of insufficient courses and my concern that its growth would be challenged by the Center’s lack of its own budgeted faculty and the graduate school’s smallness.
As a compromise, my administration suggested departmental gender studies minors, until more courses for a certificate could develop. The certificate was approved in 2011 and is now offered.
My administration also increased undergraduate minors and the Hawks endowment, proposed bylaws and initiated the Sarah Isom Center Collection in Archive and diverse co-sponsorships, now called “partnerships.”
I am satisfied that my work has benefited my successors, the center, and students.
Mary Carruth is a former director of the Sarah Isom Center for Gender Studies.
