About Us

In the early 1970's, ISU responded to the women's movement by forming a University Committee on Women. The Committee reported to the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and had as its mission "the responsibility of making a thorough study of the status of women at all levels of the university and recommending positive steps that the university should take to ensure the current status of women...."

Since 1972, the University has established numerous programs that have strengthened the presence of women and of gender consciousness on the campus. These programs include a diverse range of units, ranging from instructional and research units to recruiting and training initiatives. Among these units are the following:

While these programs/units and others are generally operating well and have increased the profile and voice of women on campus, there is no formal structure for bringing the directors together. Since the units report to a range of administrators (from the Provost to Student Affairs, from Athletics to DPS), it is difficult for the groups to coordinate planning and goals. More importantly, it is very difficult to launch major initiatives across units. In the recent set of enhancement proposals forwarded to the Committee on Strategic Planning and Budget Effectiveness, for example, there were only two small requests to enhance our strengths in this area. Women's programs missed am important chance to increase their effectiveness and expand their work.

At the same time the University is supporting a variety of women-focused units, the University Committee on Women (UCW) continues to operate independently of administrative and employment barriers with its 40-plus members. But as a broad-based committee with limited support, it cannot function as a central location for these programs. The broad membership, however, suggested that central administration meant for the committee to have such a massive mission.

In 2003, the Provost approved a new administrative structure that allowed for a refocusing of UCW back to its initial mission while also allowing for a more formal coordination of women's programs on campus, by creating the Women's Leadership Consortium. While both the University Committee on Women and the Women's Leadership Consortium aim to support women on the Iowa State campus, they have two distinct roles. The University Committee on Women serves as an independent voice for women on campus. UCW is comprised of women from across campus, from all employment categories. Being an "independent voice", UCW is expected to raise issues, request studies, and evaluate the university relative to gender issues. In contrast, the Women's Leadership Advisory Council is comprised of persons in leadership positions in the various women's programs on campus. The goal of the Women's Leadership Advisory Council is to coordinate programmatic issues related to women's issues on campus. To insure collaboration of effort, the Chair of UCW will be a member of the Women's Leadership Consortium and there will be three members of the Women's Leadership Consortium serving as ex-officio members of UCW.