The Penn Women’s Center (PWC) has been a vital force for advocacy, empowerment, and community at the University of Pennsylvania. As part of our 50th anniversary during the 2023 – 2024 academic year, we carefully collected and preserved materials capturing the Center’s rich history, impact, and evolution. This digital resource serves as a living archive, preserving the voices, moments, and milestones that have shaped PWC and the countless people who have walked through its doors.
We invite you to explore this collection, which features historical documents, personal narratives, key figures, and more. Whether you are revisiting cherished memories or discovering PWC’s legacy for the first time, this archive offers a window into the past while continuing to inspire future generations committed to social good and gender equity.
Content Warning: The following timeline includes mentions of sexual violence and discrimination. Please skip this timeline if that content feels too heavy for you right now. Should you want to talk with someone about this timeline or other matters related to interpersonal violence or mental health, please reach out to PWC.
The Penn Women’s Center gratefully acknowledges Sara Dunklee, PhD student in History at the University of Pennsylvania, whose research, curation, and scholarship have helped preserve and make accessible PWC’s rich history.
Two hundred women across the University packed College Hall on April 3, 1973 calling for the administration to take "immediate and effective action" to address the safety concerns raised by women. This four day sit-in heralded in an era of breaking new ground to advance women's place and belonging at the University. As a part of the list of demands drafted by the protestors, the Penn Women's Center was born.
In February 1983, the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity was accused of raping a young Penn woman at one of their parties. With widespread coverage of the case, 600 people gathered to demand action to be taken. In the end, Alpha Tau Omega was suspended from Penn's campus for eighteen months. All current brothers were banned from membership and the accused members were required to participate in a sexual assault education program. At the request of the victim, no charges were filed.
Previously dominated by fraternity houses, Locust Walk underwent a transformation in the 1990s for minority and female students. Marginalized students faced daily harassment as they traversed this main thoroughfare. As a way to combat the harassment and reclaim this main artery of campus, a movement to diversify Locust Walk led the Penn Women's Center to move from Houston Hall to 3643 Locust Walk in March 1996.
The landscape of campus violence prevention shifted in 2008 when the Penn Women’s Center secured a milestone $275,000 Department of Justice grant. Awarded under the federal Campus Program, this funding allowed the Center to hire Penn’s first full-time Violence Prevention Educator. By leveraging these federal resources, the PWC transformed decades of grassroots activist care into an institutionalized, university-backed violence prevention model.
Throughout the 2010s, the Penn Women’s Center expanded its scope to embrace a holistic vision of gender equity by incorporating environmental sustainability through its 2011 opening of the Eco-Kitchen. The decade saw changing student demographics push for greater inclusion, transitioning performance activism from The Vagina Monologues toward the more inclusive Penn Monologues. Crucially, the foundational advocacy seeded by the PWC culminated in 2014 with the launch of Penn Violence Prevention (PVP) as a permanent, university-funded office combatting interpersonal violence through outreach and educational program.
Entering its sixth decade, the Penn Women’s Center has adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, advocated for reproductive justice, and celebrated its 50th anniversary. A historical milestone unfolded when Sherisse Laud-Hammond became the first Black woman to direct the PWC. Over fifty years after its founding from student protest, the PWC continues to expand its sanctuary on campus, proving that radical demands can transform into lasting institutional responsibilities.
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Originating in Philadelphia in 1975 as a protest after the murder of Susan Alexander Speeth, Take Back the Night has become a core event of feminist organizing every April globally. Since the mid-1970s, Penn students have continued to organize and host Take Back the Night rallies and marches on campus alongside the Penn Women’s Center. The event provides a powerful public space for survivors and allies through a rally and march across campus followed by a speak-out from those affected by sexual and interpersonal violence.
Historically, Take Back the Night has served as both a protest demanding administrative accountability and a sanctuary for collective healing. Leading up to the night, student organizations such as Penn Association for Gender Equity (PAGE) and Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) host a resource fair, invite speakers to College Green, and hold a candlelight vigil. By providing visibility to issue areas like acquaintance rape, domestic abuse, and harassment, the annual march has continually pushed the campus community to confront sexual violence directly while embedding survivor advocacy into Penn’s culture.
Launched initially as an informal community-building initiative in 2020, Tea Time was originally held virtually on Tuesdays to promote mental wellbeing during the pandemic.
The weekly Tea Time has continued to thrive, as the Penn Women’s Center opens its doors every Friday afternoon for students, faculty, and staff to meet and try new variations of tea. Students seek out the weekly event as a break from studying to focus on wellbeing.
As an enduring tradition, Tea Time embodies the Penn Women’s Center’s commitment to providing a reliable weekly anchor for the Penn community to build networks of solidarity.
Gender Equity Week is a longstanding annual tradition featuring workshops, lectures, and multi-day campus programming centered on gender equity, reproductive justice, and intersectional social change. Co-organized every March by the Penn Association for Gender Equity (PAGE) and the Penn Women’s Center, the week serves as a platform for student leadership, coalition-building, and feminist dialogue across Penn’s campus.
The programming bridges gender theory with wellness, and mutual aid. Recent schedules have featured body neutrality workshops, safe sex trivia nights, and the free distribution of emergency contraception like Plan B to reduce healthcare access barriers. Throughout the 2000s, the annual tradition – then celebrated as Women’s Week – brought world-renowned keynote speakers to campus, including Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, and Angela Davis. Their landmark visits galvanized the campus community, linking local student activism directly to broader national movements for civil rights, racial equity, and liberation.
In 2022, Women’s Week was renamed Gender Equity Week to expand conversations about gender identity to non-binary, trans, and gender-expansive community members. This name change honors the Penn Women’s Center’s legacy of campus advocacy while making its flagship week fully inclusive.
Brought to Penn in 2015 by undergraduate student leaders in direct partnership with the Penn Women’s Center, the OWN IT Conference was established to address the persistent glass ceiling and leadership gap between female-identifying college students and women at the top of their fields. Modeled after the flagship OWN IT summit originally launched at Georgetown University, Penn’s annual conference was explicitly structured to democratize access to female leadership by offering an inclusive space for young women, non-binary, and gender-expansive students to discuss leadership and professional growth.
The day-long event centers on a high-impact agenda featuring keynote addresses from prominent executives, creators, and social justice activists, alongside panel discussions and practical workshop sessions. These breakout tracks cover critical professional hurdles such as salary negotiation, venture funding, and corporate diversity, and personal branding. Crucially, OWN IT emphasizes an intersectional lens, acknowledging that race, class, and sexual orientation deeply shape how individuals experience professional environments.
In response to the seismic rollback of federal abortion protections following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Penn Women’s Center sponsored the inaugural Reproductive Justice Conference in spring 2024 organized by Penn Reproductive Justice. Designed to address both state-level healthcare restrictions and the effect on campus wellness resources, the conference deliberately moved beyond narrow privacy-rights debates to center the holistic reproductive justice framework pioneered by Black feminist organizers: the fundamental human right to have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe, sustainable environments.
The conference served as a space for academics, clinicians from Penn Medicine, grassroots Philadelphia organizers, legal scholars, and student activists to meet to discuss the future of reproductive justice. Programming examined the intersections of reproductive justice with community organizing, entrepreneurship, and healthcare and research.
Locations with purple pinpoints on the map indicate a historic site for the history of the Penn Women’s Center or the presence of women on campus.
Now known as Claudia Cohen Hall, the first location of the Penn Women’s Center was housed in Logan Hall Room 110 from April 1973 to the mid-1980s.
Houston Hall housed the Penn Women’s Center from the mid-1980s until its move to Locust Walk in 1996.
In April 1973, 200 women occupied College Hall for four days to protest the administration’s response to a series of rapes on campus.
Installed to celebrate 125 years of female students at Penn in 2001, 22 granite benches and curbs on Woodland Walk feature the perspectives and contributions of women at Penn since 1876.
Originally built in 1927 as the Christian Association, the basement of the ARCH building held many meetings leading up to the 1973 College Hall Sit In.
Locations with blue pinpoints on the map indicate resource centers affiliated with the Penn Women’s Center that address safety and wellbeing on campus.
Penn University Life works to support students outside the classroom through overseeing cultural resource centers, providing resources for mental and physical wellbeing, and hosting student activities.
Penn Violence Prevention offers a variety of educational programs and trainings on relationship violence, sexual violence, stalking, and harassment. Staff members of Penn Violence Prevention are a confidential resource.
Special Services provides victim support to any student, faculty, or staff who experiences violence. Advocates are on call 24 hours a day to accompany to a hospital or court, provide counseling, or file a report with the police. Staff members of Special Services are a confidential resource.
24/7 Hotline Number: 215.898.6600
Title IX Office is responsible for investigating all reports alleging violations of the Sexual Misconduct Policy against Penn faculty, staff, or students.
Wellness at Penn encompasses treating physical illnesses and injuries and promoting wellness among students, faculty, and staff. Student Health provides resources and care for sexual health, gynecological health, and LGBTQ+ care. Staff members of Wellness at Penn are a confidential resource.
Founded in 1984, the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies (FQT) supports the disciplinary and interdisciplinary feminist scholarship of students and faculty across 20 departments at Penn. The FQT Center hosts lecturers, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and artists-in-resident and sponsors workshops and conferences.
Started in 1973 initially as the Women’s Studies Program, the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Department at Penn offers an array of courses examining the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality across disciplines. Students can pursue a major, minor, or graduate certificate from the department.
Locations with red pinpoints on the map indicate cultural resource centers on campus that promote inclusion and belonging.
Founded in 1973, the Penn Women’s Center promotes gender equity and justice through providing advocacy, counseling, and educational programming for the Penn community and Philadelphia residents. Staff members of the Penn Women’s Center are a confidential resource.
The African American Resource Center (AARC) offers workshops, support groups, counseling, and problem mediations for students, faculty, and staff at Penn. AARC promotes belonging among students through programs such as “Women of Color at Penn” and “Huddle Section with Men of Color”. In addition, AARC chairs the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change each year. Staff members of the African American Resource Center are a confidential resource.
Founded as Penn’s first intercultural center in 1984, the Greenfield Intercultural Center (GIC) has served as a space to provide community and belonging between underrepresented groups at Penn. As a part of its programming, the center provides counseling and trainings on leadership and cultural competency. The GIC played a major role in the creation of other cultural resource centers, such as La Casa Latina, Makuu, and PAACH.
Casa Latina serves as a central hub on campus for Penn students of Latinx descent. The cultural center sponsors conferences, trainings, workshops, and lectures that promote Latinx and Hispanic culture as well as offer mentorship to students to develop their leadership skills.
Makuu is a center for students of the African Diaspora. The center provides physical space for students to gather in addition to offering mentorship and support groups. Throughout the academic year, Makuu hosts a plethora of cultural programming and annual celebrations, such as Kwanzaa Dinner.
The Pan-Asian American Community House, commonly referred to as PAACH, is a center for students of Asian descent at Penn. PAACH offers leadership development programs, such as the Asian Pacific American Leadership Initiative (APALI) to students. The center hosts mixers, workshops, and events celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander culture.
Founded in 1982 as the second oldest LGBT center in the United States, Penn’s LGBT Center provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff on campus. Beyond offering a physical drop-in space with study rooms, the center houses a scholars-in-residence program and hosts events for the Penn community. Staff members of the LGBT Center are a confidential resource.
Penn Women’s Center
3643 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104