While eating a sandwich on their lunch hour, women across the East Tennessee State University campus can learn about anything from osteoporosis to how to manage money.
This is thanks to the Women’s Resource Center and Harriet Masters, its dedicated director since 1998. Masters began working with the WRC after she heard the project was in danger of closing due to lack of leadership. Rather than let that happen, she submitted a proposal to the school’s president and suggested she put the program in motion herself.
“The WRC program was struggling and I felt strongly that I didn’t to want lose this opportunity,” Masters said. “I felt fortunate for the proposal’s acceptance.”
Masters said she wrote the proposal while viewing the WRC like a business and stated her opinion on how the center’s future programs might operate.
“I have stuck to a lot in the proposal, but we have expanded way beyond what I originally wrote,” she said. “I can really see further expansion with more resources and volunteers.”
In addition to the Women’s Health Lunch Break Seminars, the WRC offers a personal finance series, a legal issues series and a book review group.
“I’ve been to several of the health lunch breaks and the finance seminars and they’re pretty helpful,” said Jaime Redmond, a junior at ETSU who assists in the WRC.
Redmond has been involved with the center since her freshman year.
“Everything we do is beneficial to women,” Redmond said. “We’re really useful, but because we don’t advertise as much, not as many women come, but really should.”
New this year is the restart of the “Women Making History” lecture series. According to the WRC newsletter, the series is “designed to highlight regional women who have made significant contributions to the region through their respective careers, along with personal and community accomplishments.”
The return of this lecture series is thanks in part to Barbara Murphy Brooks, an ETSU alumna. Brooks, originally from East Point, Ga., attended ETSU in 1953.
Masters said she is thrilled to have such a generous donor, as the series was canceled previously due to lack of resources.
“It’s nice to find someone willing to fund this for women in the community,” she said. “It’s important for female students and women in this area to see other women being successful right here in the Southern Appalachian region.”
This year’s speaker will be Susan Williams, an ETSU graduate who completed both her B.S. and M.A. on the Johnson City campus. Williams now teaches at Belmont University in Nashville and will be lecturing on management with her speech, “Women and Negotiation in the New Millennium.”
The most widely attended program the WRC offers is the Health Lunch Break seminars. Experts are invited to discuss issues such as breast cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis.
Masters said that the lunch breaks offer updates on prevalent health issues and have been preventative in some cases.
“Women hear the lectures, recognize symptoms and get jump started to go to the doctor and get medicine,” she said.
The next lunch break, scheduled for Nov. 14, is titled “What Does Nutrition Have to do with Cancer Anyway?” and concentrates on “the best nutrition to help you slow or prevent weight loss, manage fatigue and continue to get the most out of life,” according to the WRC newsletter.
“I really think these health seminars are making a difference and I hope they are doing more than I know,” she said.
Another service Masters is proud of is the Book Review Group.
“If nothing else, it keeps us reading and we have great discussions,” she said.
Masters also said since the book group mainly consists of regulars, it’s almost like sitting around with your girlfriends and having a good chat. The books they read revolve around women’s issues, including family relations and friendships.
One benefit of the WRC is that all the seminars and programs for health, finances and professional enrichment comes free of charge.
“We have no fees and use professionals for all of our seminars,” Masters said. “We only use people who really know their subject matter.
“If you have the time and the need of our programs, in my opinion, it’s hard to pass us up.”
Masters said the best way for students to get information about the Women’s Resource Center’s activities is to check the online calendar on the ETSU Web site. The WRC also posts the latest events on its homepage at www.etsu.edu/wrcetsu.

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