Director of the Women’s Center Nancy Cantaloupo has handed in her resignation, to take effect in February 2003. Cantaloupo will complete her law degree at the Georgetown Law Center in May 2003 and has accepted a job, beginning next September, with a local law firm.
Cantaloupo attended Georgetown and graduated from the School of Foreign Service in 1995. She was hired as coordinator of the center for the following fall.
A year later, the position was upgraded to 30 hours a week and Cantaloupo asssumed a a larger role in the center.
According to Cantaloupo, the center has grown considerably since its inception in 1990.
Originally, the center consisted of a single part-time staff member and was housed in a converted storage closet in the lobby of Village C West. Cantaloupo said that many of the first visitors to the center thought its location was indicative of the University’s position on women’s issues and were driven away by the its appearance.
The center was moved in 1998 to the third floor of the Leavey Center, its current location. It now has a staff of around 25 people, 20 of whom are part-time student volunteers, four work-study undergraduates and a paid graduate student.
Cantaloupo said that her biggest accomplishment at Georgetown is helping the center grow to be what it is today, given its beginning.
“It feels like we have come so far from where we started,” she said.
According to Women’s Center volunteer Dana Campbell (CAS ‘05), Cantaloupo has contributed significantly to the development of the center.
A search committee has been formed to fill the soon-to-be vacant position. Campbell, a member of the search committee, said that she is primarily looking for a person who can work well with female students.
“I am looking for someone who can understand the importance of female students and how they fit into the context of a Jesuit university,” Campell said.
The application deadline is Nov. 15, at which point the committee will begin reviewing applications and interviewing candidates.
The committee hopes to have selected someone for the position by January, Campbell said.
