Newsletter - Spring 2001

In this newsletter, we will highlight some of our most recent accomplishments and share some new plans. You will also meet two of our graduate students and learn about their Master's thesis research.

We are particularly excited about our work to bridge research and action through our 2001 " Gathering at the Well" Forum. This year's topic is "Can Women Work and Have a Life Too? An issue of concern for women and men."

Thank you all for your support of our work.

Sincerely, Meg A. Bond & Jean L. Pyle

CWW's Annual Spring Forum: Can Women Work and Have a Life Too?

In today's hectic world, work and life can collide, resulting in adverse effects on work, family life and society as a whole. Hence the balance between work and life is a primary concern for people in the labor force, women in particular. To explore meaningful ways for women to achieve balance in their lives

Community discussant Mr. Lou Brady spoke to Dr. Meg. Bond about the work and life issues of his own employees. Brady is a CEO at Lowell Community Health Center from a community-based perspective, the Center for Women and Work will present its annual spring forum "Gathering at the Well" on March 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Alumni Hall, UMass Lowell North Campus. Speakers, discussants and the audience will examine the work/life issues of women of different classes and ethnicities. They will explore positive approaches to addressing these issues within the community.

Two keynote speakers will discuss the results of their research for the audience to reflect upon. Randy Albelda, an economist from UMass Boston and a research on poverty and women's economic status, income inequality, and state and local finance, will talk about her concerns for U.S. welfare reform and the constant work/family dilemmas that low-income women face. She is the author of Economics and Feminism: Disturbances in the Field and co-author of the books The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual and Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. She is an active participant in legislative and educational efforts to improve policies and our understanding of welfare and employment policies that affect low-income women and their families.

Psychologist Lotte Bailyn from the Sloan School of Management at MIT conducts research on women in the organizational setting. She will focus on strategies for addressing the work-life dilemmas involved. She is the author of Living with Technology: Issues at Mid-Career and co-author of Working with Careers. Her book Breaking the Mold: Women, Men, and Time in the New Corporate World argues that by challenging the assumptions in which current work practices are embedded, it is possible to meet the goals of both business productivity and employees' family and community concerns, and to do so in ways that are equitable for men and women.

The other four speakers are community members invited to talk about the issues from the points of view of their communities and the perspectives of their lives. The center hopes to develop some mutual understanding across gender, class, and race or ethnicity and begin to build an agenda for further action.

The Gathering at the Well is sponsored by the UMass Lowell Center for Women and Work in collaboration with Lorin Kerr Ergonomics Institute. It is funded by the Umass Lowell Council on Diversity & Pluralism and the Council of Federated Committees & Institutes.

All interested people from the Greater Lowell are invited to gather on March 29 to share one another's intelligences. For further information about this forum, please visit the CWW website at www.uml.edu/centers/women-work or call us 978-934-4380.

CWW Workshop for Women-Owned Business in Greater Lowell

The number of women-owned businesses grew rapidly in the period 1977-1992, becoming one-third of all businesses in the U.S. Some women established their own income earning enterprises to try to balance work-family concerns while others perceived them as a way around the 'glass ceilings' women often encountered in corporations. However, women-owned businesses receive a very small fraction of financing available for new ventures. The constraints and concerns of women-owned businesses are important, yet not well-organized, issues. There is a need for women researchers, business owners and community workers to participate in shaping new forms and cultures of business to address the real world problems that these business owners face.

To explore the unique situation of women business owners in Greater Lowell, the Center for Women and Work held a workshop on March 12 at the Visitor's Center of Lowell National Historical Park as part of the events celebrating the Lowell Women's Week. The program raised critical issues and challenges faced by these women in striking a balance between running a successful business and enjoying family life. Specific objectives of this workshop included:

• Identifying the challenges faced by women business owners within the Greater Lowell community.
• Providing a forum for discussion of the motivations of women in becoming business owners
• Outlining the resources within the community that women business owners have utilized as well as other challenges that might be useful
• Developing a strong link between business and academe that will advance and support women's participation in the local business arena.

To provide a context for the discussion of women-owned business in Lowell. Dr. Jean Pyle provided a brief overview for the importance of women-owned business in the national economy. Dr. Meg Bond then presented a summary of a survey conducted by the CWW on women-owned business in Greater Lowell. The event was framed so that the discussion of the survey results was grounded by specific examples from community-based panelists about strategies and resources for local entrepreneurial women. This led into a facilitated discussion among community-based panel members and the audience.

The center distributed copies of its just-published Greater Lowell Women-Owned Business Directory, comprised of those women-owned organizations interested in being included. This directory will be updated periodically. Please call the Center if you wish to obtain a copy or if you wish to submit new and updated information.

CWW Joins in Observing UMASS Lowell's Workers' Memorial Day

On Tuesday, May 1, 2001, UMASS Lowell will host its tenth annual observation of workers' Memorial Day to pay tribute to workers and honor Massachusetts activists who have worked towards the prevention of occupational fatalities, injuries and illnesses. Two awards will be made. One, an "Award for Health and Safety Activitism,' will be presented to a worker, a health and safety advocate or worker organization whose efforts in 2000 have made a strong contribution to the protection of the health and safety of workers in a workplace, an industrial sector, Massachusetts and /or New England. The second an "award for Public Health in the Work Environment," will be given to a Massachusetts occupational health and safety professional or professional organization/agency in honor of their exemplary devotion to identify the need for, develop, implement, and/or enforce measures to prevent occupational fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.

The Center for Women and Work is pleased to join the list of co-sponsors this year. Other groups involved include the Department of Work Environment, the College of Health Professions, the Labor Extension Program, the Public Health Initiative, the Center for Family, Work and Community, and the Protestant Campus Ministry.

Each year names of nominees are solicited. Please call us at the Center or email us with names of people we could submit for consideration for next year's award. We particularly invite names of women.

Spring Inside CWW: Master's Research in Progress

One of the stated goals of the Center for Women and Work is to build linkages - both within UMASS Lowell and throughout the greater community. Graduate students working at the Center are particularly encouraged to develop thesis topics that involve research on women's issues. We are pleased to feature the work of Cheryl Duffy and Eileen Maloney this spring. Both of these students are furthering the Center's goal of collaborative action research. Cheryl's work with Girls,Inc.and Eileen's study of our own graduate students will provide new knowledge that can be utilized to develop strategies for positive changes and enable us to better understand the attitudes and experiences of students and girls in Lowell. Readers who are interested in the possibility of developing such future collaborations, should contact the Center.

Cheryl Duffy

In today's society, women and girls struggle with issues surrounding physical appearance and body weight. Increasingly, these issues have become apparent during adolescence when girls appear to have a decrease in body satisfaction. Prevention programs are important to assist in the development of a healthier lifestyle in today's adolescent females. Cheryl Duffy. Community Social Psychology graduate student, is working with a pilot prevention program offered by Girls, Inc. of Greater Lowell in a few elementary schools in the Lowell area. The program is a 10-week curriculum that focuses on educating girls in the fourth and fifth grade about self-esteem, images in the media, and the importance of individuality. For her Master's thesis, Cheryl is assessing the effectiveness of this outreach program. The girls participating in her study complete a pre-test/post-test survey that assesses their attitude about their own self-esteem and body image as well we their attitudes about their culture and cultural identity. She will use this survey to evaluate whether the program has an impact on the attitudes towards body images and self-esteem of the participants, in comparison to a control group. The results of this collaborative study will provide information about what is needed for Girls, Inc. to deliver a successful intervention.

Eileen Maloney

Sexual harassment is a serious problem for graduate students. While much research has documented the existence of this problem, relatively little has been done to understand the importance of the context and general ecology of the issue. Graduate student Eileen Maloney and the Center for Women and Work are assessing how UMASS Lowell graduate students perceive and experience their academic environment, how this climate is related to the incidence of sexual harassment on campus, and the impact of the climate and the harassment on graduate students' physical and mental health. The study will assess students' perceptions of attitudes inside their own academic departments and for UML, as a whole. It will also assess their wide range of actual experiences with sexual harassment during graduate training.

The study makes a unique contribution to both research and action by enhancing our understanding of how context and cultural values affect rates of sexual harassment. This study will identify potential areas for change aimed at building a community that supports women's professional development and enriches the learning and growth of all campus constituents. This may include ideas about how to strengthen the recruitment and retention for diverse faculty and promote organizational change to advance a campus climate celebrate diversity.

Announcing

"Feminism and Community Psychology," two special issues of the American Journal of "Psychology (Volume 28, Numbers 5 and 6) edited by Meg A. Bond, Jean Hill, Ann Mulvey, and Martin Terenzio have come out recently.

Mark Your Calendar For Our Spring Offerings

Gathering at the Well: Our Annual Forum on Women and Work. This year we will explore an issue of concern for women and men by raising a question to both of them: "Can Women Work and Have a Life Too? An issue of Concern for Women and Man," 8:30 to 12:30 p.m., March 29, Alumni Hall, North Campus, UMASS Lowell.

UML Workers' Memorial Day Observance. May 1. Contact CWW or other participating groups for details.

CWW Launches Revised Web Site

Center for Women and Work announces their revised Web site at www.uml.edu/centers/women-work. To find out more about this revitalized center, including research activities and upcoming events, check it out.