Virginia Woolf was a famous English novelist and women’s writer during the 20th century, but the University of Idaho Women’s Center honors a different Virginia Wolf each year — a misconception that seems to linger.
Women’s Center Director Lysa Salsbury said Virginia ‘Ginny’ Wolf was a former UI professor of physical education from 1964 to 1982.
“We are forever getting people telling us that we spell her name wrong — but it is a different Virginia Wolf than the author,” Salsbury said.
Ginny, who played an integral role in the founding of the Women’s Center, chaired the Women’s Caucus, a group put together by then UI President Earnest Hartung in the early 1970s, Salsbury said. The purpose of the caucus was to study several topics, she said, including the attrition rate of female students — the high rate of female students dropping out of college.
Lysa Salsbury | Courtesy
Salsbury said only 35 percent of the student body was female at the time, with a 25 percent dropout rate every year.
“Hartung appointed a commission to figure out why female students were dropping out of school, and the group started looking at climate issues among women faculty and staff,” Salsbury said. “Some of the most prominent issues included pay inequity and sexual harassment.”
The caucus, composed of nine signatory members, filed a gender inequity complaint with the Idaho Commission on Human Rights against UI.
The university went to the Idaho State Board of Education and requested a supplemental appropriation of one-third of $1 million to alleviate some of the issues, such as pay inequity.
Some of the money was also used to start services that had not existed before on campus, one of which being the Women’s Center, Salsbury said.
“The Women’s Center started out in a little room in the Admin Building that was furnished with cast-offs from other offices, cheap posters on the walls and only staffed by volunteers,” Salsbury said. “The conciliation agreement gave money to fund a professional staff member as a permanent director.”
Jackie Sedano | Courtesy
Salsbury said the first Virginia Wolf Distinguished Service Awards were given to a university faculty member and student in 2002, Kay Keskinen and Emily Sly, respectively.
Keskinen and Sly had both been active with the Women’s Center — Keskinen referred to Sly as her “feminist daughter” — and both wanted a way to honor each other’s hard work and activism in some way, she said.
When the center received its first community member nomination in 2006, Salsbury said they decided to create a new category to expand to three in total.
“The criteria for nominating someone for the award goes beyond the scope of their professional and academic endeavors to create equality,” she said.
Jackie Sedano, Women’s Center program coordinator, said anyone can be nominated. But, nominations should honor someone on campus or in the community who has done amazing work with gender justice, working to recognize them for their advocacy and activism.
Nominations, which are usually 400 to 500 words, are open now until March 1 and can be submitted on the homepage of the Women’s Center website, Sedano said.
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Virginia Wolf Awards banquet will be held March 28.
“We host the ceremony in a banquet fashion, so that we can give the awardees the honor they deserve,” Sedano said. “They have done a lot for our community, so we want to do a lot for them.”
Whoever nominates the winners is able to walk them to the stage and talk about them at the banquet — by either reading their nomination letter or introducing them and expanding on what they do, Sedano said. Winners are able to reserve a table for anyone they would like to bring, such as friends and family.
“I love the aura or a banquet in general — but I think the coolest part is seeing the reactions of the people being honored,” Sedano said. “It is really nice to be a part of that moment and witness these intimate moments that people have. Everyone in the room is proud of them and thanking them for everything they have done.”
Allison Spain can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @AllsionSpain1