Women's Research & Resource Center
scholarship...activism...community...change
In 1981, Spelman was awarded a grant from
the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation to establish the Women’s Research and Resource Center (WRRC). The goal was to provide an academic unit of the College that focused on curriculum development in Women’s Studies, research by and about women of African descent, and community outreach.
Learn More About the Alice Walker Literary Society
The Alice Walker Literary Society, a collaborative project between Spelman College and Emory University, was established in 1997 to initiate, sponsor and encourage critical dialogue, scholarly publications, conferences, programs and research projects devoted to the study of the life and works of Alice Walker.
The Literary Society’s institutional home is
The James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory located at:
1256 Briarcliff Road
Suite 412S
Atlanta, GA 30306
404.727.2515
News:
The Women’s Research & Resource Center continues to make bold strides, creatively and distinctively connecting education with advocacy and activism!
As part of our new concentration in Women’s Health, Assistant Professor Monica Melton, Ph.D., issued a challenge to students in her special topics course, “Gender and Health in Cross- Cultural Perspectives."
The challenge -- create public service announcements that raise awareness about those chronic conditions and often preventable illnesses which disproportionately impact women of African descent – HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, heart disease, cancer.
Nicole Scott, a junior, international studies major from New York, is the winner of the network's public service announcement contest. Along with the other finalists, she will be featured on a special segment of the public affairs news program, “Focus Atlanta,” on Sunday, April 26, at noon, viewable on Atlanta local channel CW69; Comcast 10 and 810 (hi-def); DISH 69 and 8305 (hi-def) and a host of other cable and satellite channels. Please check your local guide.
The Women's Research Center Makes History
The WRRC is the first women’s research center at a historically Black college and the first one to offer a women ’s studies major. Over the course of its 25 year history, with sustained support from the Ford Foundation, the Center has facilitated faculty and student leadership development; collaborated with other departments/programs on and off campus to establish new courses (most recently in the sciences) that address issues of gender and race; established international linkages with universities outside the U.S. to increase their capacity to promote faculty and student development; and hosted a number of conferences that explore the lives of African and African descended women in a variety of cultural contexts.
The Anna Julia Cooper Professorship
Drs. Bill and Camille Cosby, through the Clara Elizabeth Jackson Carter Foundation, provided funds (as a match for Mott Foundation funding) to endow the Anna Julia Cooper Professorship in Women’s Studies which is attached to the Center. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, director, is the first recipient of the Chair.
WRRC Programming
The Center coordinates the Toni Cade Bambara Scholars/Writers/Activists Program and Collective which produces an annual scholar-activism conference celebrating the vision and work of Bambara. It also manages the Spelman College Archives and houses the Digital Moving Image Salon (DMIS). It publishes Sisters of the Word, a bi-annual newsletter, and hosted SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, which was founded in 1984 and ceased publication in 1995 (back issues are available).
