Students create journals for the Rape Recovery Center in the Basis Student Center on Nov. 5. Womxn Resources Coordinator Kenzie Campbell said decorated journals can be used by survivors of sexual assault as a tool for healing. (Photo by Sicilee Williams)
Students gathered for an event hosted by Westminster College’s first Womxn’s Resource Coordinator Kenzie Campbell in the Basis Student Center on Wednesday.
Campbell is a junior custom psychology and justice studies major. She said her position was the result of repeated efforts by many students to create a women’s center on campus.
“This position was conceptualized as a way to try to fill in some of the gaps while we work on the larger project of acquiring a women’s and gender resource center,” Campbell said. “Maggie Regier, Sabi Lowder and some other women-identifying people from the Civic Engagement Center helped conceptualize it.”
As the womxn’s resource coordinator, Campbell works out of the Center for Centers located in Basis under the direction of Julie Tille, director of the Center for Civic Engagement.
Campbell said she began the Rape Recovery Center Journal Making event during Fall semester 2017 and has coordinated it with the Dumke Center every semester since.
Supplies lined up on the tables in the Basis Student Center for students to help create journals to donate to the Rape Recovery Center on Nov. 5. Kenzie Campbell, Westminster College’s first womxn resources coordinator, said decorated journals may be used as a tool for healing for survivors. (Photo by Sicilee Williams)
“A lot of my background is in advocacy work for sexual assault survivors, so I have always felt very passionate in working with the Rape Recovery Center,” Campbell said. “This event is also simple and allows for ample opportunity to have deeper conversations about the work the RRC does and the different modes of healing for a survivor like journaling.”
Campbell said she knows that there are lots of different tools and modes of healing for survivors to use and journals, especially decorated ones, are one thing that can the journey of healing for some.
Brandan Sudberry, a first-year theatre major, works for civic connections in the Dumke Center. Sudberry partnered with Campbell to host Rape Recovery Center Journal Making.
Sudberry said that partnering with Campbell for this event is hopefully just the beginning and will lead to future collaborations.
Campbell said she has run events similar to Rape Recovery Center Journal Making including
a Victim Advocate Social.
“[The] Victim Advocate Social was a chance for students to get to have tea and chat with our on-campus victim advocate Isabella Ramos Miller,” Campbell said.
Campbell also organized the Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil with Enan Whitby on Nov. 19 and said she intends to plan more events.
“I am in the works on creating an inclusive-feminism reflection workshop specifically targeted at some of the different ways we can fall to ‘fake’ or ‘exclusionary’ feminism,” Campbell said. “This topic is important to me because in my opinion true feminism advocates for all genders and identities–especially trans-identities–because the same power dynamics and structures propagate our inequalities.”
As the new womxn resource coordinator, Campbell said she is excited to serve the Westminster community through advocacy, sharing resources and referrals, and promoting programming that is gender-inclusive and empowering.
