The Newcomb College Center for Research on Women is a divison of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans. It was founded in 1975 at the behest of faculty and staff as The Newcomb Women's Center, and was re-named in 1985 to reflect an emerging focus on research and teaching. It is one of ten interdisciplinary research centers at Tulane University. The Center is the oldest university-based women's center in the Gulf South and is the only regional member of the National Council for Research on Women.
The mission of the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women is to preserve, document, produce and disseminate knowledge about women. In pursuit of its mission, the Center:
• maintains the archives of Newcomb College; collects and preserves the records of organizations and individuals, photographs, scrapbooks, ephemera, oral histories, audiovisual materials; and houses a unique culinary history collection centered on Southern cooking traditions;
• maintains a circulating library open to the public of some 10,000 volumes and subscriptions to over 100 women’s studies periodicals;
• provides visiting residencies for feminist scholars, creative artists, and activists from the United States and abroad;
• provides grants for student research and for projects benefitting women and girls in the community;
• produces a full schedule of lectures, symposium and readings open to the public without charge;
• disseminates relevant scholarship through Center produced on-line and print publications, exhibits, and occasional papers focusing on topics such as women’s status in Louisiana, Newcomb history, the education of women, and culinary and domestic arts;
• sponsors faculty research circles and community study groups;
• serves as an advisor to Intensive Newcomb along with the Women’s Studies Program and Newcomb Student Programs;
• serves as an advocate for women on campus and in the community;
• builds alliances with local, national, and international networks of women's studies and public policy scholars.
The Center plays a key role in the lives of many women. NCCROW's outreach extends annually to over 5000 people throughout the region and the nation who benefit directly or indirectly from Center programs, library and archival services, and projects such as those outlined below.
- The report on The Status of Women in Louisiana, published in 1998, presented the first comprehensive report on the health, economic standing, and political participation of women in Louisiana. The report prompted Governor Foster to establish the Louisiana Women's Policy and Research Commission. Director Dr. Beth Willinger is a governor-appointed founding member of this commission.
- The Nadine Vorhoff Library is the Gulf South's finest collection of women's studies books, periodicals, and databases holding some 10,000 volumes. The library's Culinary History Collection documents the food traditions that make New Orleans great and is one of the only collections in the country dedicated to southern regional cooking.
- The Newcomb Archives holds the records of the College and an extensive collection of materials documenting the lives of Newcomb alumnae, individual Southern women, and local women's groups. It also includes the Newcomb College Oral History Project, a collection of video and audiotapes preserving the history of women who have changed the face of Louisiana, such as Betty Carter, Iris Kelso, Rosa Keller, and Leah Chase.
- The Sophie B. Wired Computer Cluster was founded in 1997 as a collaborative feminist infotech space providing a supportive atmosphere and connecting women to the latest in technology. Post-Katrina, the Sophie B. Wired project is evolving to reflect the new realities of Newcomb.
- Among the full schedule of public programs sponsored by the Center are the highly popular Zale Writer in Residence Program and Florie Gale Arons Poetry Forum, which bring nationally acclaimed, award winning women writers and poets to New Orleans for writing workshops, lectures, and readings. Recent writers include Ellen Gilchrist, Joanna Scott, Edwidge Danticat, Thisbe Nissen, Octavia Butler, Natasha Trethewey, and Denise Duhamel.
- Research Grants totaling some $2500 annually are awarded to faculty, students, visiting scholars, and community members to support cutting-edge research in the field of women and gender studies. Priority is given to topics focusing on Southern women and to those that benefit the lives of women and girls in the New Orleans metropolitan area.
