Word: abrw
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Attempting to bring black women together, ABRW this year has sponsored a "Big Sib" program for incoming black freshman women, a meeting to provide general information about University Health Services, and a dinner with W. Antoinette Ford, formerly a member of the presidential clemency board and now a fellow at the Institute of Politics...
...dinner, we got off onto what it is like to be a black woman," Carla Herriford '76, ABRW recording secretary, remembers. "Anything negative we had to say, she had something positive to say. She was really inspirational." Herriford's most emotional experiences with ABRW--the ones that bring the most excitement and warmth into her boice--come from meetings with other women. "There were times last spring we were on the verge of crying, we were so happy just to see a room full of black women...
Wendy Brown '76, co-chairwoman of ABRW, also thinks ABRW has already unified the black women at Radcliffe. Working with people, she explains energetically, allows you to form a different kind of relationship from going to class with them. "Now we have reasons to stop and talk to one another--now we take time to get to know one another...
Until 1973, Doris Mitchell, former assistant dean of Radcliffe, had coordinated activities for black women, such as teas, open houses and a career symposium, thereby delaying the need for a formal organization like ABRW. "After she left, there was really no one around who had the interest she had in black women," Anderson says, adding that in forming an organization, the women decided they wanted to be autonomous, since "if we had felt there were groups that were responsive to our individual needs, we would not have needed our own." ABRW receives $5 yearly dues from each of its members...
Another potential source of income is their own activities. ABRW plans to sponsor a women's health issues seminar, with a panel of mostly gynecologists and women doctors from UHS, and, on a larger scale, a weekend career seminar similar to the one organized by Mitchell. Mostly black women from the Boston area--members of the Association of Black Women Lawyers, for example--will be invited, in order to show the black women here the options that are open to them after Harvard. Active communication with black alumnae will hopefully provide this kind of service in the long...