History of WID Program at Virginia Tech

The Women in Development program at Virginia Tech has a long history of supporting women in developing countries, beginning in 1978.

Timeline:

1978: Virginia Tech receives Title XII Foreign Assistance Act grant ($500,000); this includes a commitment to include women.

1980: The WID project begins offering courses on the role and status of women in developing countries.

1982: Virginia Tech establishes the Women in World Development Program;

Mary Hill Rojas is the first Virginia Tech WID Director. The Title XII grant was matched at 50% by the Provost’s Office and the (then-named) Office of International Development. The objectives in establishing this position included:

• raising awareness of faculty, students, and staff about women’s lives in developing countries

• ensuring that women are both agents and beneficiaries of Tech’s work in developing countries

1987: Mary Hill Rojas becomes president of AWID—the Association for Women in International Development (www.awid.org/)

1988: Virginia Tech WID becomes home for AWID, serving as the secretariat for AWID until 1994

• AWID played a vital role in providing Virginia Tech’s WID program with national and international visibility.

1990: The Virginia Tech WID director’s position becomes state-funded. WID program mandates are:

• To ensure that women’s issues are considered in all stages of project development and that women become full participants in Virginia Tech’s work in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

• To provide a forum for information exchange, research, and teaching for students, staff, and faculty in the university.