Less than a month ago, Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) closed its Women’s Center and defunded the  IMPACT! Life Transitions Program, designed to assist displaced homemakers and women from low-income backgrounds in developing life skills.

The Women’s Center was created as a safe space for non-traditional students who need assistance in dealing with personal problems. It provided services such as weekly support groups, counseling, classes, guest speakers and a student-run fundraising club. Although its services were originally aimed at female students, the Center was open to all.   The Center held its last class on Aug. 31 and officially closed its doors on Sept. 2.

“It developed into much more than a women’s center, even though the focus was always there for women especially,” said Carel Landess, a volunteer counselor at the Center. “If [a student] wanted to go to school but they didn’t fit in with the general population, it was a great place for them to study or find friends.”

IMPACT!, a bridge program aimed at disadvantaged women not yet enrolled in the college, merged with the Women’s Center when its director Deana York assumed direction of both programs in Sept. 2010. The program targeted women going through major life transitions such as divorce, widowhood or escaping abusive relationships. IMPACT! divided its focus between self-sufficiency and employment training and personal counseling.

“The biggest thing we did was help people feel comfortable in their own skin,” said York. “It’s just really rewarding to see folks come into their own and feel like they’re valuable and worthy and that they have something to contribute.”

Over the course of its operation, IMPACT! graduated over 300 women, many of whom went on to enroll in the college and later gain employment.

“They would never in a million years dream that they would go to school. It’s just amazing,” said Landess.

Despite the program’s good reputation, WWCC decided to cease funding for it and the Women’s Center earlier this year.

“It’s unfortunate,” said York of the decision. “The college was very generous to us. [The program] was well supported. It’s really just an issue of budget cuts.”

York cited Washington’s statewide budget crisis as the primary reason for the cuts.

“They had to look at the overall picture, and we served such a small percentage,” said York. “Even though [we served] an important bunch of people, a marginalized population.”

Although the program was based out of WWCC, many members of the Whitman community are equally disappointed over its closure.

“I’m really upset about it,” said Whitman senior Nina Neff-Mallon, who works as case manager for the STEP women’s shelter in Walla Walla. “We referred a lot of women to IMPACT! and have seen them benefit enormously from the program. They shouldn’t have defunded it.”

“This is one more detail in an all-encompassing devaluation of women’s education,” said senior Ellie Newell, co-president of Feminists Advocating Change & Empowerment. “I would encourage people to be really aware of ways in which they see male privilege and class privilege played out in the community. I think we sometimes get caught up in the Whitman bubble and forget that we are incredibly privileged to go here.”

Melissa Wilcox, director of the gender studies department, noted the lack of a comparable resource on the Whitman campus or elsewhere in Walla Walla.

“It’s a very big loss for the community. The women’s center made a difference in the lives of a lot of students, both male and female,” said Wilcox. “It was a unique program and a very important one . . . Whitman doesn’t have a women’s center. The community college [was] ahead of us, and now they’ve been brought back to our level.”

York and Landess are currently struggling to secure private funding to continue the program, if not on the WWCC campus then in another location.

“Maybe someday it will be able to come back . . . that’s our hope. We’re not giving up,” said York. “I don’t see the big picture. All I see is my own little vision. I see the people that we worked with, I see what a tremendous loss that is. It’s hard when you see the folks that you served, and you know they’re just going to fall by the wayside. That’s the tough part.”