Mission
The Flora Stone Mather Center is dedicated to research on women and gender. It strives to be a national leader in catalyzing innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship that encourages creative inquiry across a wide range of academic disciplines through a feminist lens. We put this research into action as a community space and a social innovator to foster a collaborative and supportive campus culture.
Values
A community space...
The Mather Center is a space to gather, build community, and raise consciousness. Center activities build community by working to foster critical consciousness, a deeper understanding of self, a broader perspective of others, an awareness of social issues, and a desire to advocate for change.
A social innovator...
The Mather Center supports the development of programs and initiatives in and outside the Center that are guided by the principle that higher education should ultimately serve the public good. This principle prompts us to ensure that initiatives we support are centered in the belief that universities and individuals work not only for individual advancement but larger social needs.
Research-informed action...
The Mather Center utilizes a critical constructivist research-informed action to avoid practices that reproduce inequalities and seeks out new ways of thinking about existing research which include the voices of marginalized knowledge communities. We maintain that knowledge is constructed through historical, cultural, political, economic, and social contexts and that research-informed action should be transformational, encourage mutual understanding, and inspire critical self-reflection.