Sloss Women's Center Case Study

“I’m looking for someone who can be visionary to really make this women’s center a place where it’s really inclusive for everyone,” Som Mongtin, the assistant director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center said.

The Margaret Sloss Women’s Center has been open since 1981. In this time, it has been under the direction of various directors.

Most recently, Lorraine Acker was the director of the Sloss House. In the fall of 2017, Acker moved on to become the associate vice president of Student Affairs at Bennett College in North Carolina and Alissa Stoehr became the interim director for the remainder of the year.

Now as the year comes to an end, the Sloss House is looking for a new director.

There are three finalists for the position, Cinnamon Brown,

Brown has a bachelor’s degree from the University of West Alabama, a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a PhD from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, all in history.

Brown praised Iowa State for the Womyn of Colour Network, an organization that connects and creates a supportive environment for both undergraduate and graduate “womyn of color”, the Feminist Fridays, an initiative that brings in faculty across campus to lead conversations on different topics related to gender equity, and the “Vagina Monologues.”

One aspect of the Sloss House Brown hopes to change and improve upon is the inclusion of graduate students.

“I think that a lot of the time when we talk about student services, we talk about undergraduate, and when I think about my own graduate student experience that was probably one of the most excluding times on my life when I probably could have used more support and more services,” Brown said.

Brown also mentioned that she wants to look at how the Sloss House can help graduate students as they navigate salary negation and professional

Ruxandra Looft is currently an academic adviser III in the world languages and cultures department and a faculty affiliate in the women’s and gender studies program at Iowa State.

Looft has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Bowling Green State University in German studies and a PhD from Washington University in German and comparative literature with a concentration in feminist critical theory.

Looft said she would not go into the Sloss House with the mindset to change things, but rather looking at ways to support and sustain what is already in place, such as the Feminist Fridays, and praised the Sloss House for how collaborative everyone is.

Iowa State human resources department has a specific policy for open search positions. The position is announced to a variety of media outlets specific to higher education and applicants are given 30 days to submit a resume.

The dean of students then creates a search committee is tasked with reviewing the applicants and conducting phone interviews with the qualified