Garrison, Carole

English

The University of Akron

The University of AkronIdeaExchange@UAkronHail We Akron!December 2018Up Against the WallCarole GarrisonRetired, carole.garrison@eku.eduPlease take a moment to share how this work helps you through this survey. Your feedback will beimportant as we plan further development of our repository.Follow this and additional works at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/hailweakronThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by IdeaExchange@UAkron, the institutional repository ofThe University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hail We Akron! by anauthorized administrator of IdeaExchange@UAkron. For more information, please contact mjon@uakron.edu,uapress@uakron.edu.Recommended CitationGarrison, Carole, "Up Against the Wall" (2018). Hail We Akron!. 1.https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/hailweakron/1Up Against the Wall  The Institute for Life-Span Development and Gerontology was the university’s concession to women’s studies but Faye Dambrot, who co-directed the program with a colleague, Harvey Stern, never gave up on the idea of a recognized, independent Women’s Studies program. She and others plotted and campaigned until life handed them a “get out of jail free pass.”  Akron’s new provost, Frank Marini, was married to Dr. Elsie Adams, the feminist and author of Up Against the Wall Mother. Seizing on this connection, Faye and her band of feminist faculty and students—by this time including me—threatened to organize a sit-in in the women’s restroom in Buchtel Hall, the building housing the offices of the president and provost.  We didn’t have to carry out our threat. Instead we invited Dr. Adams to visit campus to lecture about her book and discuss other feminist writers. For the first time in my academic career I heard someone talk about books like Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle. It was exhilarating and it was also the impetus that brought about the Women’s Studies at the University of Akron. The program was approved in the spring of 1986 and I, by mandate of Faye, became its founding director.  Faye Dambrot never stopped being the wind beneath the wings that propelled Women’s Studies to expand creating a vibrant town and gown for Akron’s academic and community women. She is the reason that Akron still has a Women’s Studies program today and a Women and Gender resource center where students can find their voices and discover their futures.  Professor Carole Garrison, retired 

Up Against the Wall

Garrison, Carol

https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=hailweakron

Up Against the Wall

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The University of Akron

The University of Akron