Becky Lockwood’s Mission
April 29th, 2010
Becky Lockwood, associate director of the Everywoman’s Center at the University of Massachusetts and member of First Churches was featured in a Daily Hampshire Gazette Story. On Thursday, April 29, 2010, the Gazette followed with this editorial:
In Our Opinion: Center’s mission is ongoing
A recent Gazette story noted that the Everywoman’s Center at the University of Massachusetts operates “under a cloud of instability.” That has been the case for years – and shouldn’t be so.
Over its nearly four decades, the center – a place that advocates for gender equality and is Hampshire County’s only public rape crisis center – has weathered funding and program cuts.
It is the program of first resort, it appears, when the budget scissors come out. In 1991, the center’s rape crisis hotline was suspended for five months due to a lack of funding. In 2003, the hotline was again threatened due to budget cuts – this time a 50-percent, or $90,000, drop in state funding. It was saved by a fund drive the center led.
Does anyone think its mission has been accomplished?
We still live in a time when one out of six women experiences sexual violence in her lifetime, when the national median salary for women is 80 percent of what a man brings home and women make up 17 percent of members of Congress.
The center’s quest to create equality for women and to stop violence against women remains vital.
The Everywoman’s Center was one of the first women’s centers in the nation when it opened in 1972. In its heyday, the center had staff that included a director, office managers and professional staff supervising many different programs. In 1992, 20 years after its inception, the center employed 12 staff who oversaw 100 volunteers.
The center now has a staff of five that works with a crew of about 85 interns, volunteers and work study students.
Since 2001, the largest annual operating budget the center has had was about $1 million. This year it is running on $600,000. It has shed many programs that pushed for political change.
One of its most important functions is to help women who have been raped. The center’s hotline connects sexual-assault victims with volunteer advocates who drop what they are doing to be by a caller’s side, day or night, or talk with a victim and accompany her to a police department or to the hospital.
Today, in addition to the hotline and sexual assault crisis counseling, the center at UMass runs programs dedicated to women’s studies, the promotion of women, and overcoming sexual violence. Services are offered to students and the Hampshire County community.
The center relies on financial support from UMass and a patchwork of grants. Special events, the center’s Women of Color Network, counseling services and the referral and information resources center are funded by UMass and grants from the Five Colleges and the Graduate Student Senate. The rape crisis hotline and services are backed by the Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Office of Victims Assistance Fund. The town of Amherst also provides support.
At times, the area’s four private colleges – Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith – have given to maintain programming.
In a recession, tough decisions get made about spending. But the center’s funding slide through this decade can’t be blamed on the recession.
The public should be grateful to the funders that have stayed with this important work. They understand that the playing field for men and women is hardly level. And they see that the Everywoman’s Center is determined to address that.