Supporting women on campus and beyond

Stephanie Garrett, top right, with her team at the Women's Resource Centre.Stephanie Garrett, BA'04, MSc'05, is making an impact on women's lives, on campus and internationally. Though offered a scholarship to study engineering at the University of Alberta right out of high school, Stephanie knew that wasn't the path for her. She chose instead to follow her passion in women's rights, universal education, and social change by pursuing a Women's Studies degree at the University of Calgary.

She attests that one of the key contributors to success in any field is to pursue something that you actually want and are interested in. "It is easy to be tempted, but don't base your decisions on the expectations of others," she advices. "Take it upon yourself to get paid for what you love to do. For me, I have found a way to take my passion and make it into a meaningful and fulfilling career."

Her drive, passion, and education have carried her all over the world. Stephanie has completed numerous work and volunteer positions; from researching the impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement on rural women in Honduras to working with Tibetan women immigrants in India. She was also the first Canadian woman to attend the Institute for Civic Leadership at Mills College in California and completed a Master of Science degree in Gender, Development and Globalization at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Somehow, she manages to still stay humble.

Stephanie's current position has brought her full-circle, back to the University of Calgary as founding Executive Director of the Women's Resource Centre (WRC), which opened October 2006. A main source of leadership, strategic planning, and visioning, Stephanie, along with her team, attempt to evaluate the needs and concerns of women on campus and find ways to answer them through the centre.

"We started [the centre] literally with a piece of paper," Stephanie recalls. "To see it up and running, to have been able to take the passion and collective experience of all the women involved in the project and see it become a reality...it has been a great accomplishment."

With initial start up behind her, Stephanie has already begun integrating international initiatives into the centre's mandate. Last January, she and three other women travelled to Kenya to build partnerships between the U of C and education leaders in Africa. The overall purpose of their project was to make links between poverty reduction, AIDS/HIV, generational as well as gender gaps, and women and girls' education.

Beyond the Women's Resource Centre, Stephanie's future ambitions include working with larger scale international organizations, such as the United Nations or UNICEF, as well as consulting with governments and NGO's on applying strategies to recognize diversity and develop women's leadership.

"I aspire to be seen not only as a women's advocate, but to help the condition of men, women, and children, through the specific women's studies lens that I have. I credit a number of University of Calgary professors with helping me realize that for me, life needs to be about social change and changing conditions for others."

By Chelsey Hiller