Women’s Research Centre Records Repository

In response to growing demand from women, women’s groups, and academics for additional feminist academic programming, the Woman’s Program was established at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta in 1981. The program quickly surpassed its original mandate and became a center for women’s resources in Edmonton and Northern Alberta. In 1984 the Secretary of State for Canada proposed the establishment of five Chairs in Women’s Studies for Canada, and a joint proposal to establish a Chair from the prairie provinces was submitted by the University of Alberta and Athabasca University in Athabasca, Alberta. With the dual goals of having a Chair created and promoting women’s studies at a post-secondary level, an Advisory Committee on Women’s Studies was launched in the fall of 1984 at the University of Alberta. The committee was composed of women academics from the University of Alberta and Rebecca Coulter, the Coordinator of Women’s Studies at Athabasca University. In 1985 Marilyn Assheton-Smith, then Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee, and several other committee members began the task of clarifying the Committee’s vision for the Research Centre. Their proposal to establish a jointly sponsored Women’s Research Centre was endorsed by Ross H. Paul, Vice President Academic of Athabasca University on June 23, 1988, and by the Academic Development Committee and the General Faculties Council of the University of Alberta on September 26, 1988. The Women’s Research Centre, also known as the Misener-Margetts Women’s Research Centre, was active until 1993.

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