_{Current and former student workers and interns at the Tech Gretta Stanger Center.}

Tennessee Tech University’s Gretta Stanger Center partners with organizations around campus and actively works to help students learn and connect with others. The center has expanded its programs in the past year to accommodate the needs of the community. 

“We’ve been working especially in the last year to expand our programming to better serve Tech students and our community,” Helen Hunt, Gretta Stanger Center director and Tech professor, said. “We have a unique mission to serve Tech students as well as employees, so we have programming geared toward employees too, like our women in leadership series.” 

The Gretta Stanger Center worked with Student Affairs and the College of Business to identify financial literacy as a big need for students, especially material that’s relevant to women’s life circumstances. Although the content is tailored to women’s lives, a wide range of information that is relevant to everyone is presented, and people of all genders are welcome at all the events, according to Hunt. 

“My favorite new program this year is our Financial Wellness with the Gretta Stanger Center series,” Hunt said. 

The series of workshops focused specifically on how financial issues relate to women, including sessions on building credit, budgeting and a panel on financial empowerment. 

“We’re always looking for ways to support the needs of women and gender minorities on campus, and to provide education about gender equality for everyone on campus,” Hunt said. “So, we’ll continue to add and revise programming to meet those needs.” 

The center has also been creating programs specifically for the student clubs they work with, like ALICE (All Ladies in Civil Engineering) and Lambda GSA, or campus groups like ASPIRES, that don’t necessarily get advertised on their website, but that are geared toward meeting the specific needs of these groups. 

Hunt says she has led, and will continue to offer, SafeSpace trainings and workshops about LGBTQ+ inclusion, sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention for anyone that requests it. 

“I’ve given these workshops for the CAFE (Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence), for advisors, for departments and for Greek life organizations,” Hunt said. 

The Gretta Stanger Center regularly partners with Intercultural Affairs and Student Activities, but they work with units from across campus. The center helps sponsor events such as evenings with guest speakers, lecture series and workshops.

The center also offers its own library with books and media on a variety of specialized topics. Books can be checked out from the center by anyone with a picture ID and students are encouraged to fill out the book request forms to add new titles to the library’s growing collection. 

“I remind people all the time that everyone has gender, and everyone benefits when women and gender minorities can thrive, the rising tide lifts all boats,” Hunt said. “We hope that people get involved.” 

The center also hosts a bi-annual art competition, where the winner’s art is featured in the WMC’S gallery. Each semester the award goes to a student from the College of Fine Arts BFA Juried Art Exhibition whose art reflects the WMC’S mission. 

“We’re always open to ideas. If anyone has something they’d like to see, or ideas about how we can help them, please email me at hhunt@tntech.edu,” Hunt said. “We keep working every day to make Tech a place where women and gender minorities can thrive and the whole campus embraces the benefits of gender equality for everyone.”

The Gretta Stanger Center is in the Roaden University, room 339, and is open 8:30 a.m. – noon and 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.

For more information on the Gretta Stanger Center, including ways to become more involved and upcoming events, visit https://www.tntech.edu/women/index.php.

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