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 more that a quarter of century for many constituencies, including children, parents, grandparents, student staff, professional staff, volunteers and observers. Every participant unwittingly contributed to Towson 's shared undertaking which quietly, day-by-day, celebrated social change. In essence, a self-imposed obligation intended to facilitate rather that to simply allow women to continue their education while not simultaneously abandoning their parental responsibility. Only a few years prior to the Center's inauguration, the norm for women in this country was not to be able to organize a life inclusive of parenting, higher education and working.

An undergraduate student, sounding the charge in 1970, challenged Towson's assumptions and behaviors telling he Early Childhood Education professor that she was overwhelmed and felt, given her obligations, 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 concern.

Remarkable? Yes. An institution where students sense they have the right to speak and professors recognize that they have the right to be heard. And institution 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 support, which in turn might allow them to be able to make critical choices to further educate themselves.

Towson , pragmatically motivated, found a way to practice what it preached, and put its resources where its theory was.