Happy 10th Birthday to the Women’s Institute!
Jessie Ramey, right, poses for a photo with students during the Women’s Institute’s 2023 Open House.
The Women’s Institute turns 10 this year, and the celebrations are only just getting started.
When it began in 2015, Chatham had just opened undergraduate admissions to all genders. This decision, and the subsequent formation of the Women’s Institute, is what brought women’s historian and women & gender studies professor Jessie Ramey to Chatham. Now, she serves as director of the Women’s Institute.
“One of the things that’s unique about the Women’s Institute is that, unlike a women’s center—which a lot of colleges have, that sit more on the extracurricular, student affair side of things—we’re fully embedded on the academic side of the house,” said Ramey. The Women’s Institute gives students the space and community to pursue all things women and gender—from majoring in women & gender studies to pursuing a women’s leadership certificate, or joining Chatham University’s Zeta Zeta Chapter of the Triota Honor Society.
Also when the institute was first created, the Women's Leadership Living Learning Community was formed. “And that of course is in our gorgeous, historic Laughlin mansion,” Ramey said.
When the institute started, Ramey said, “we realized that we were going to need to start a bunch of programs and continue a bunch of programs.” There are “many, many things” that fall under the women’s institute umbrella. This includes its sister centers, the Pennsylvania Center for Women & Politics (PCWP) and the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship. (Those centers existed prior to the Women’s Institute.)
CNN anchor and senior political correspondent Abby Phillip speaks at the PCWP’s 2025 Elsie Hillman Chair in Women and Politics event.
The Institute also offers a lot of informational opportunities to help maintain an aware, empowered, and inspired community. They work with neighboring communities to bring social justice to campus through the Just Films series, and the Women’s Institute has an endowed research fund (thanks to the Class of ’64’s original concept and continued endowments) that allows students to pursue research projects that relates to women, gender, or sexuality.
“The Barbara Stone Hollander women’s leadership lecture is our signature event, […] and we bring in an outstanding woman leader in her field to give a keynote and work with students all day on campus,” Ramey said. Connected to the same endowment from the Hollander family is the $2,500 Barbara Stone Hollander student award. This supports students as they pursue summertime women’s leadership experiences.
The Institute has been hard at work recently planning the PGH Feminist Student Summit, which will happen in Mellon Center on March 29th. Over 100 students from neighboring Pittsburgh universities are set to attend the event here on campus.
Even in a more casual, everyday setting, the Women’s Institute still shows up for our community. Open every day, the resource center provides students with menstrual health supplies, reproductive health supplies, Plan B, and, of course, stickers and coffee.
“We’re known for our coffee pot and our sticker bowl,” Ramey said, referencing their drop-in resource center located on the first floor of the Lindsay House.
“Students from all over campus come and hang out with us,” Ramey said. “It’s a beautiful space. It’s a place for people to be—and that’s a really important part of feminist community building.”
The Women’s Institute’s Coffee Bar, located on the first floor of the Lindsay House.
The 10th anniversary celebration won’t stop at the end of the semester. “We will be having a special event in the fall to commemorate the anniversary, and we’re particularly inviting our friends, our alums, and our donors,” Ramey said. “There’s a special donation page where folks will come in and choose where they want their funding to go to support the program.”
“Our whole academic year is sort of our 10th year–I’m just gonna keep celebrating!” Ramey said.
Lyn Bigley ’26 is currently pursuing her BFA in creative writing alongside a BA in psychology. She currently works as a library aide and a digital content creator for Chatham University. In her downtime, she enjoys looking at pictures of animals, playing video games, impulse buying, and watching reality TV.