The mission, organization, funding, programming, and clientele of campus-based, administratively organized women's centers

This study focused on campus-based, administratively organized women's centers located within the formal administrative structure of an institution of higher education. This study gathered data of both a historical and current nature by means of a questionnaire that addressed specific issues relating to the mission, organization, funding, programming, and clientele of these women's centers.
From these responses, 124 campus-based, administratively organized women's centers were identified and were used in the data analysis. Centers most typically were: located within the Student Affairs section of the institution; separated from the President by two administrative levels; headed by directors who reported directly to a Dean.
Relationships were found to exist between some of the institutional demographics of the host institutions and some of the characteristics of these women's centers. Based upon institutional demographics, however, there are no universally applicable models for how women's centers express their mission, how they are organized and structured within the center and within the institution, what sources provide their funding and how much funding they receive, what categories and numbers of programs they offer, and how many and who their clients are based on institutional demographic categories. This lack of uniformity is not surprising if one considers that these centers were founded independently from one another in order to address the particular needs identified by their respective founders, without any national organizing agent.