This past April was our most powerful yet. In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the Women’s Center coordinated the annual Take Back the Night event, which 265 UMBC community members attended (click here for a photo round-up). The Clothesline Project reached another 183 people, and 10 new shirts were created by survivors of interpersonal violence.

The Women’s Center’s mission to support survivors extends beyond April. This year, the Women’s Center has trained 103 students, faculty, and staff in our supporting survivors workshops. Jess and Megan have also devoted over 25 hours of 1-1 support meetings for survivors and those dedicated to supporting them.

As this school year ends, please help us continue cultivating a survivor-responsive campus. We are only $450 away from making our 25th Anniversary GiveCorps goal for the 2016-2017 school year!
Give today and help a survivor access the support they need. 

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring event flyers from of our Take Back the Night. 

Since Take Back the Night 2017 just happened a few weeks ago, the experience may be fresh in many of our minds. As social media and technology has enhanced over the past several years, it’s always interesting looking back at old event flyers and Take Back the Night is no different! As we’ve been diving over the archives this past year, it’s neat to see the ways in which promoting Take Back the Night has evolved. From basic event flyers to hashtags and geofilters, the importance of getting students to this critical event remains constant.

One of our first TBTN flyers from 1991. 

Take Back the Night 2003

A last minute advertisement located in The Retriever Weekly in 2003

One of the newer TBTN flyers from 2016. 

This year Kayla Smith shows off our newest flyer and logo! Kayla-ception via SnapChat!!

You can learn more about the history of Take Back the Night at UMBC by checking out our recent blog post on just that!

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring the history of the Women’s Center event and programming tabling and outreach!

An important part of the Women’s Center vision has been education and outreach. Since our opening in 1991, the Women’s center has continually been dedicated to campus and community outreach and providing resources related to women’s issues, social justice, and feminism to the UMBC community.

One of the earliest Clothesline Project displays in 1998 at the UC Plaza

Women’s Center community members tabling at the 1998 Clothesline Project display

Today, the Women’s Center tables at numerous events throughout the academic year. Both student and professional staff take time out of their day to help inform UMBC community members about campus, the Women’s Center and community resources. We also table for special days like National Coming Out Day and critical initiatives such as the Telling Our Stories Project. Next time you see us tabling, be sure to stop by, say hi and check out our resources!!

Women’s Center community member Jahia tabling at the 2016 Telling Our Stories Showcase

Former Women’s Center Director Dr. Mollie Monahan-Kreishman, Administrative Assistant, Eryl Pettit and Student Staff Mahnoor Siddiqui tabling on Mainstreet back in 2010!

Celebrating National Coming Out Day at our 2015 NCOD tabling event with Women’s Center Staff member, Kayla Smith!

Student Staff, Michael, and WC community member, Deja, at the 2017 Lovapalooza

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

Research Basics        

• Choosing a Good Topic

• Citing Sources

• Understanding Call Numbers

Understanding Sources        

• Evaluating Sources for Credibility

• Anatomy of a Scholarly Article

• What Are Primary Sources?

Finding Resources       

• Where to Search

• Searching for Articles

• Searching for Databases

• Using the Everything Search

• Find Primary Sources

For more topics, browse the full list.

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring the history of Women’s Center anniversary celebrations! 

Student Staff at The Women’s Center’s 25th anniversary photo booth

The Women’s Center has always had something to celebrate. We often talk about how women-centered spaces and activists spaces by their very nature are radical and bold and well, we find that worth celebrating. As you already know, this year the Women’s Center is celebrating our 25th anniversary. We kicked off the year with a birthday party where some of our founding members and critical people in our history spoke about the importance of Women’s Centers and the way they had seen the Women’s Center grow over the years. We had cupcakes, enjoyed a feminist- inspired photo- booth, and had a wonderful time. Throughout the year, we continued to document and celebrate our history at events such as Critical Social Justice and welcoming Provost Rous to the Women’s Center to meet with current students, staff, and faculty. We also reached out to alum and former staff members over the year and created a 25 Friends of the Women’s Center to honor those who have given of their time and resources to support our work.

Simmona Simmons, a founder of The Women’s Center, speaks for the 25th anniversary celebration

But how have we celebrated past anniversaries?

During our 10th year of operation, the Women’s Center hosted a chair making event in which student organizations and departments connected to the Center, decorated a chair to represent themselves in the space. For many years, these chairs lined the walls of the Women’s Center as both decoration and useful places to sit. While the chairs are not out in our space on a daily basis anymore, you’ll see them make an appearance during roundtable events or other gatherings that require additional seating.

For our 20th anniversary, the Women’s Center Advisory Board and professional staff were committed to hosting large anniversary celebrations over the course of the year. Key events included our opening and closing picnic,a collection of women photographers featured in the Library gallery, and a service project at a local women’s shelter. UMBC student, Stefanie Mavronis, ’12 , interviewed many UMBC students, staff, and faculty for a digital story telling project to capture the theme of the anniversary: 100,000 Stories – Which One is Yours.  In the spirit of the chair decorating that happened in our 10th year, we created a quilt featuring student organizations and departments that continue to be important to who we are as a Center.

Unveiling the 20th anniversary quilt lovingly crafted by student staff member, Lizzy Wunsch, Class of 2015. 

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

In partnership with Maryland Traditions and the Maryland State Arts Council, the Special Collections department is excited to make available the Jason Pate collection. Special Collections student assistant Riley Auer assisted with the processing of the collection and prepared this blog post. Thank you, Riley!

Jason Thomas Pate (1915-1960) first aired his radio station, WASA, on May 15, 1948 in Havre de Grace, Maryland. It was the first broadcasting station between Baltimore, MD and Wilmington, DE playing 500 watts and eventually expanded to some 1500 watts before its sale to KME in 1992. After a sudden heart attack, Pate died in 1960 leaving two radio stations, WASA and WHDG, in the care of his wife, Virginia Forwood Pate Wetter. Although Pate Wetter had no previous broadcasting experience, she accepted the role of President of WASA (1960) and CEO of the Chesapeake Broadcasting Company (1985), parent company to WASA, and continued her husband’s legacy with the help of her son Jason David Pate.

WASA made its fame by establishing itself as an authority on folklife in the Appalachian and Chesapeake Regions. Influential artists such as “jubilee” singers the Little Wonders, banjoist Ted Lundy, country gospel singers E.C. and Orna Ball, singer and banjoist Ola Belle Reed (1916-2002) and her brother, guitarist Alex Campbell (1923-2013), also made frequent appearances performing traditional folk and bluegrass music. Reed and Campbell, natives of Ashe County, North Carolina, quickly rose to local fame by performing at various music parks, alongside other musicians, and on local radio stations, such as Pate’s stations. Reed later began a successful solo career leaving a legacy that has inspired artists such as Tim O’brien, Marty Stuart, Del McCoury, the Avett Brothers, and more. In 2015 Clifford Murphy, Henry Glassie, and Doug Peach published a book and two-part audio collection titled Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line (UMBC catalog record). The book and recording, based on research compiled by Glassie in the 1960s and recent fieldwork by Murphy, Glassie, and Peach, documents the careers of Ola Belle and Alex, and their many projects and contributions to the genres of bluegrass and folk.

A selection of materials from the Jason Pate collection:

Today a large collection recordings from WASA can be found within the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress, and, here, at the UMBC Special Collections. Thanks to efforts by Murphy, then the director of Maryland Traditions (the state's folklife program), UMBC proudly holds several Maryland folklife collections including the Jason Pate collection which features over 1,000 audio recordings from WASA and WHGD whose axillary contents include fan letters to Pate, club mailers, guitar lessons, artist posters, and more. After 2 years of careful photo-documentation, cataloguing, and detailed processing, the Jason Pate collection has been processed and is open to the public.

For more information about the individuals Jason Pate hosted on his radio shows, including those mentioned above, see the Jason Pate collection finding aid or contact the Special Collections department.

Reference list for the attached image, left to right, top to bottom:
Thank you note from “The Ernest Tubb Record Shops”, (Coll123_0364)
“Queen Elizabeth’s Cake” Recipe, (Coll123_1194)
January 10, 1977 Letter from E.C. Ball, (Coll123_0109)
Ola Belle Reed recording dated September 23, 1975, (Coll123_1051)
Ola Belle Reed & Maiwers Mountaineers Recording, (Coll123_0362)
“Beverly King Sings and Plays the Blue Ridge Hills” 45 record, (Coll123_1255)
“The Ralph Stanley International Fan Club” insert, (Coll123_0064)
View of “Campus Challenge, Tape #455”, (Coll123_0188)
Chuckie Reed, Ola Belle Reed + Friends recording dated July 10, 1976, (Coll123_1524)
“Flatpicking” sheet music, (Coll123_0055)
Interior of a tape container lid, (Coll123_0064)
“Mountain Music Shindig; Vol. 5, No. 5” mailer, (Coll123_0041)
View of “Mountain Music Shindig” tape container interior, (Coll123_0364)
“Stanley Brothers Old Time Tape Club” insert, (Coll123_0064)