As the window of opportunity to be part of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment was closing in the fall of 2010, Kay Warren knew she had to act fast to launch a fundraising effort for the Pembroke Center. Warren, who had been named director of the center that October, had only two months to come up with a project to research "the human cost and benefit of social change," she said.
Together with Elizabeth Munves Sherman '77 P'06 P'09, chair of the Pembroke Center Associates Council, Warren, who is also a professor of anthropology and international studies, brainstormed ideas for faculty-led initiatives that would foster research across the humanities and social sciences about global issues. The two came up with a plan — if the Pembroke Center could raise $750,000 for faculty research with the help of the campaign, Sherman and her husband David Sherman '79 P'06 P'09 would make it $1 million with her own money.
Today, the Pembroke Challenge has exceeded that original goal, though the actual sum will remain a secret until Nov. 5, the 30th anniversary of the Pembroke Center's founding. Warren attributed the challenge's success to the "generosity" of alums.
Warren said the challenge's focus on global issues is a way the University can increase its prominence in the international community. "We'll be seen as a positive force for understanding complicated issues that are global and the result of an interconnected world," she said.
The funds raised by the challenge will first go to the University endowment and then will be spent according to the needs of the initiatives, which fall under three broad categories: Gender, Medicine and Science; Gender and Public Policy; and Families and Workers on the Move. Both graduate and undergraduate students will have the ability to participate in these initiatives through assistantships and workshops.
Students will benefit especially from hands-on experiences because they will see how research is conducted from the very beginning, Warren said.
In addition to starting the Pembroke Challenge, Warren has instituted other changes to the center since she returned from leave in July. She has increased the number of faculty members involved in the center and created a faculty board with teachers from different fields to help run it.
Warren is considering new undergraduate academic opportunities. One idea would have students from the humanities and those from the social sciences provide input on each other's research. She is also working on an archive that collects papers by feminist theorists and makes them available for scholarly research, a project recently renamed the Feminist Theory Archives.
But Warren still has a few goals for the center she would like to accomplish, including a general expansion of the Pembroke Center to reach more students from diverse fields.
As for the Gender and Sexuality Studies concentration, which the Pembroke Center sponsors, she said she would like to see the curriculum grow — and maybe teach a course about "human trafficking and the legal dimensions of transnational commerce" with a legal scholar or prosecutor who works in human rights.
But Warren said she does not know how feasible such a class would be. "I guess I'm allowed to dream," she said.
