FAQ

The Women’s Center is a vital hub of resources and opportunities on Grounds. We work every day at the intersection of social justice issues that affect our students, faculty and staff on Grounds, our neighbors and friends in Charlottesville, and women and men globally.

When you are in need of extra support, we offer free and flexible counseling, as well as digital resources to help you address the problems you’re facing. We’re here, as well, for those who have a friend or loved one in need and are looking for guidance on how to best support them. We have the tools and expertise to help you feel empowered in your life, or in helping others.

Just as importantly, we offer a number of year-long engaged scholarship programs that provide undergraduate students with opportunities to pair classroom study with practical work. Our internship program is an engaged scholarship program that develops women leaders (and the men who work with them!) by partnering students with a staff mentor to work closely with. We also manage two community mentorship programs - the Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) and the Men's Leadership Project (MLP) - through which undergraduate students study adolescent development with Curry School faculty while serving as a mentor to a middle school girl or boy in the local community. Through all of these programs, students prepare for careers in a variety of fields and for service in the communities where they will live and work throughout their lives. 

The Women’s Center serves students and the University as a whole, as well as the greater Charlottesville community we call home. We believe that we do our best work when our team and the communities we actively serve are inclusive of people with different backgrounds, beliefs, ages, identities, ethnicities, and worldviews. 

Our services and opportunities for UVA students can be found throughout this site. Many of our counseling services, workshops and trainings, events, engaged scholarship opportunities, and information resources are aimed at students from all of UVA's schools.

We encourage UVA faculty and staff to be aware of the many resources and opportunities here for students you know who need extra support or are ready for leadership opportunities. But if you are a University employee, you'll want to know more about the counseling, training, and legal clinic services we offer for you, too. You will also find relevant publications among our information resources and lots of inspriation for every stage of your career in the coverage of women around Grounds on our blog.

For our friends in the Charlottesville community beyond UVA Grounds, get to know the counseling services, legal clinic, and information resources we offer for you.

We get it. The name on the door can seem a bit daunting to anyone who doesn’t identify as a woman. Men are not only welcome at the Women’s Center, but an important part of our team. Everything we offer, from counseling services to internship opportunities, is available to EVERYONE, including men.

Having ‘Women’ in our name is a reflection of the current gender inequities that trouble our society and a nod to our history. But it doesn’t mean men have no place in this space. It isn’t only women who are affected by body image issues, whose lives may be constrained by gender expectations, or who suffer the impact of sexual assault. Likewise, it isn’t only women who are served by the Women’s Center: the Women’s Center also benefits the men who are concerned about body image, who want to explore healthy models of masculinity, and who know that sexual assault impacts everyone. Men are welcome at the Women’s Center as seekers of our services and as allies in our work to bring about gender justice on Grounds and across the world.