Slowly we gather in the heat, as participants in yet another of the Towson Community's Fourth of July parades

This Center has been "home" for many constituencies, including: children, parents, grandparents, student staff, professional staff, volunteers and observers for more than a quarter of a century.  Every participant has contributed to Towson 's shared undertaking, which celebrates social change. Only a few years prior to the Center's inauguration, the norm for women in this country did not allow them to be able to organize a life inclusive of parenting, higher education and working.  The Center is committed to facilitating women to continue their education while remaining dedicated to their parental responsibility.

An undergraduate student, sounding the charge in 1970, challenged Towson's assumptions and behaviors telling her Early Childhood Education professor that she was overwhelmed and felt, given her obligations, that she would never graduate. She questioned why the institution wasn't more supportive of students like her. Her professor, after listening, chose to use himself to advance his student's concerns.

Remarkable? Yes. Towson is an institution where students sense they have the right to speak and professors recognize that they have the right to be heard and where Chairs feel free to speak to their Deans who, in turn, get to speak to the provost.

Towson was an early enabler, actively involved in promoting a different way of perceiving the role of student parents and their commitment to their young. This institution was beginning to understand that if women were ever to gain equality in the work force, they required specific types of supportthat would allow them to be able to make critical choices to further educate themselves.

Towson, pragmatically motivated, found a way to practice what it preached.