Media Alert

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 25, 2008
Media Contact(s) : Olivia A. Scriven Senior Advisor, Institutional Advancement and Academic Development (404) 270-5887 oscriven@spelman.edu		A.J. Johnson (404) 270-5892 afjohnson@spelman.edu

WOMEN'S CENTER AT SPELMAN COLLEGE RECEIVES $1 MILLION GRANT FROM FORD FOUNDATION TO ESTABLISH ENDOWMENT FUND

ATLANTA (Sept. 25, 2008) To assist the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center in its work to educate Black women and address issues of race and gender, the Ford Foundation contributed a $1 million grant to establish the Center’s endowment fund. The Ford Foundation, a New York-based international philanthropy whose mission is to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement, announced the grant at the public launch of the endowment initiative on Saturday, Sept. 13.

The Ford Foundation, which rarely provides endowment grants to colleges and universities, has provided uninterrupted support for Women's Center programs for the past 25 years. "The Spelman Women’s Center came to Ford with an agenda that hadn’t been addressed by any other HBCU or most colleges in general, namely highlighting the contributions and addressing the issues facing African American women, in particular, and gender equity more generally," said Alison Bernstein, vice president for Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom at Ford Foundation, who made the special presentation. “We are putting our financial resources in a place that can deliver on the promise of greater gender equity for African American women.”

The establishment of the endowment is the first phase of a strategic plan to strengthen the Women’s Center’s position as a vital site in higher education for the development of women’s studies; women’s advocacy projects; archival collections related to Black feminist politics; teaching and scholarship by and about Black women; digital media; and student activist leadership development. The endowment grant will enable the Center to continue its legacy of addressing issues of race and gender in course offerings, research, and advocacy projects here and around the globe.

“We want to ensure the Center can build on its already rich legacy of research and activism to advance the status and leadership of African American women,” said Bernstein in presenting the $1 million check.

The grant was presented to Beverly Guy-Sheftall C’66, founding director of the Women’s Center, following an intuitive and insightful conversation between four stalwart Women’s Center advisory board members, which she moderated.

Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Spelman and Bennett College president emerita; Gloria Steinem, feminist activist and Ms. Magazine founder; Bernice Johnson Reagon, C’70 cultural historian and founder of the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock; and Diana Chapman Walsh, president emerita of Wellesley College, shared personal and professional experiences of what it means to be a leader in movements of progressive change, as well as advocates for women’s colleges and women’s education in general. Best-selling author and playwright Pearl Cleage, C’71, delivered a provocative poem titled “Voting for the Girl: Some Thoughts on Sisterhood & Citizenship.”

"The Women’s Research & Resource Center is poised to become the foremost site in the academy related to raising global awareness about the complex history and lives of women of African descent,” said Dr. Guy-Sheftall.

By 2010, The Women’s Center’s goal is to raise $2 million to lay the foundation of support for the endowment. This would mark the first time in Spelman’s 127-year history that an existing academic program would have its own endowment fund. Olivia A. Scriven, senior adviser for academic and institutional advancement, is managing the fundraising effort under the endowment campaign. "A major part of this effort will be through the support of our advisory board, a team of internationally renowned scholars, artists, activists, educators, physicians, and corporate executives," Scriven explained.

"We are extremely energized by the way alumnae have embraced our fundraising efforts, constituting 38 percent of contributions so far,” she continued. “We will leverage the Ford grant as we talk with foundations and other potential donors in Atlanta and around the country."

The Women's Center:
The Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College is recognized in the academy and beyond as a distinctive and vital site for scholarship, faculty and curriculum development, student leadership development and advocacy surrounding women of African descent in the United States and around the globe. Established in 1981, the Women’s Center coordinated the Comparative Women’s Studies program, the Toni Cade Bambara Scholars/Writers/Activists Collective, the Digital Moving Image Salon, the Spelman Archives, and the Audre Lorde Black Lesbian Feminist Project.

###

Spelman College:
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is the only historically Black college in the nation to be included on the U.S. News and World Report's list of top 75 "Best Liberal Arts Colleges — Undergraduate," 2005. Located in Atlanta, Ga., this private, historically Black women's college boasts outstanding alumnae, including Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman; U.S. Foreign Service Director General Ruth Davis; authors Tina McElroy Ansa and Pearl Cleage and actress LaTanya Richardson. More than 83 percent of the full-time faculty members have Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees and the student-faculty ratio is 12:1. Annually, nearly one-third of Spelman students receive degrees in the sciences. The students number more than 2,186 and represent 43 states and 34 foreign countries. For more information regarding Spelman College, visit: www.spelman.edu.