Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Days-Massolo Center for Women's and Gender Studies

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organization

Days-Massolo Center for Women’s and Gender Studies

Overview

The Days-Massolo Center for Women’s and Gender Studies is a Hamilton College institutional center established in the early 2000s under Dean Robin Frye and VP Nancy Thompson. It formalizes the institutional legacy of the 1978 Kirkland-Hamilton merger and the Kirkland Project lecture series, providing an organizational home for gender studies programming at Hamilton. The center opened in 2011 as a dedicated campus facility.

Relevance to Research

The Days-Massolo Center appears in the Spectator corpus as the primary institutional framework for gender studies and women’s advocacy programming in the 2004–2013 period. It provided organizational support for the Kirkland Project lecture series and other gender-related programming. In fall 2013, it was centrally involved in Hamilton’s “Yes Means Yes” sexual assault prevention initiative, co-launched by Sr. Associate Dean Meredith Bonham and CDO Amit Taneja. A 2013 campus survey finding that 94% of students reported the campus atmosphere encouraged excessive drinking was directly linked in campus discourse to sexual assault risk — the context in which the Center’s programming operated. The Center is noted in the Hamilton College entity record as a key campus facility that opened in 2011.

Notes

Type: Academic / student support center
Active period at Hamilton: Established early 2000s; facility opened 2011; ongoing
Key events: - Established under Dean Robin Frye and VP Nancy Thompson during the early Stewart administration - Formalizes the institutional legacy of the 1978 Kirkland-Hamilton merger and the Kirkland Project - Facility opens on campus in 2011 as the Days-Massolo Center - Provides organizational framework for gender studies programming throughout 2004–2013 period - Co-organizes “Yes Means Yes” sexual assault initiative with CDO Amit Taneja and Sr. Associate Dean Meredith Bonham (fall 2013)