Another gender violence service coordinator is coming to the Women's Center

After completing a campus review process, the Carolina Women’s Center has been allocated money for a second gender violence service coordinator.

“The Board of Governors, in their review, they really keyed in on in their review of the Women’s Center ... the need for additional interpersonal violence counseling staff,” said Carol Tresolini, vice provost for academic initiatives and chairperson of the Centers and Institutes Review Committee.

“And the committee, the review team that Lynn Blanchard chaired, agreed that we do, and that the center really does need to have additional staff in that area.”

The money for the new staff member will come from state funding.

Cassidy Johnson is currently UNC’s only gender violence services coordinator.

After the Board of Governors reviewed 237 centers and institutes in the UNC system in spring 2015, they proposed additional funding for only one — the Carolina Women’s Center. The board said it needed more staff.

The centers and institutes are all required to go under periodic reviews on campus, but the review of the Carolina Women’s Center was moved up and scheduled due to the board’s review, said Lynn Blanchard, chairperson of the review.

Blanchard said the review consisted of evaluating the mission of the center, the quality of student experience at the center and the center’s goals and leadership.

“There was a specific set of questions for all centers and institutes,” Blanchard said.

Christi Hurt, director of the Carolina Women’s Center, said the review did not recommend fundamentally changing any programs, but it showed how other campus resources like to work with them and how they can best serve students’ needs.

“It was a validating and reaffirming process,” Hurt said.

The review, completed in July, was then presented to the Centers and Institutes Review Committee in the fall. That committee made recommendations to the provost and chancellor, who endorsed the findings.

The Carolina Women’s Center is also restarting its search for a new director. Hurt, who still serves as the director, is now Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief of Staff for Student Affairs.

“We were really waiting for the review to be completed, and that means having the review team do its work and have the report go through the appropriate approvals,” Tresolini said.

Hurt said they wanted to know what they were looking for in the next director and what their goals were, which the review allowed them to figure out.

“I think it’s been a very much natural evolution,” said Hurt.

Tresolini said following the hiring of the new director, they will go ahead with strategic planning and specify long term and short term goals.

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