After spending seven years in a "temporary" location in the Choates dormitory cluster, the Women's Resource Center is looking for a new home closer to the center of campus.
"Physiologically our location is not far away, psychologically it is," said Giavanna Munafo, the Women's Resource Center director.
"If someone already knew where the building was located, such as Collis, then when they saw some of the programs we sponsor, they would be more likely to come."
But the Women's Resource Center is not the only organization on campus that is looking for a new home.
"There are other things that are taking precedent over the WRC," said Gordie DeWitt, director of facilities planning. "While the WRC is still on our list, there is no open location that I'm aware of. At this moment we are not actively looking."
Munafo said she would like to speed up the process.
"We were put in the Choates in 1988 as a temporary solution to our problem," she said. "We were acknowledged that this was not an appropriate location, and since then we've been looking for a site."
Lischa Barrett '95, who leads a Sisterhood Support Group that meets at the center, said it is small and poorly located.
"There are no noticeable signs for the center until you are upon it," she said. "When I lead my group, there are on average about 30 women in attendance and we have people sitting on tables because there is not enough room for everyone."
The Student Assembly is working with the center to try to find a larger, more central location, said Assembly member Miranda Johnson '97.
"This would allow many of the women's groups on campus to share and consolidate their resources and provide a more equitable division of space for the women at Dartmouth," Johnson said.
Assembly President Rukmini Sichitiu '95 said that finding a new home for the center is one of her top priorities and new Assembly Vice President John Honovich '97 also said the center should be moved.
"I do think it's small and I do think they need a larger place," Honovich said. "It depends on finances, but I do think it needs to be improved."
Munafo said she has talked to both Dean of the College Lee Pelton and Acting President James Wright and added that she was assured moving the center is a top priority.
Pelton said the current center is too small.
"Clearly, the space they now occupy is not large enough to contain the activities and programs offered there," Pelton said.
Munafo said the center is competing with academic departments clamoring for more space, but she said she is still optimistic that the center will find a new home.
Sichitiu said in Novemeber that the implementation of the First-Year Report would force the Center to be vacated and relocated, since the Choates is targeted by the plan to become a freshman cluster.
The Committee on the First-Year Experience recommended the College use three residential clusters -- the Choates, the Fayerweathers and the River Cluster -- as freshman dormitories.
Sichitiu said no specific location is currently being targeted for the relocation of the Center as long as it is centrally located and has adequate administrative and office space.
