Serving the Old Dominion University community since 1976, the Women's Center offers programs and services to address the special challenges and opportunities women students encounter related to their personal and academic success. Also, recognizing the critical role that both women and men play in creating a world that is free of gender bias, our goals include promoting healthy relationships and a safe and equitable environment that is free of barriers to all persons. Center services seek to empower all students to achieve their personal, academic and professional potential.

The ODU Women's Center was founded in October 1976 and is the oldest center on a Virginia college campus that has served students for over 30 years.

According to Pat Hyer, a founding mother, two grandmother centers were at the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota (40th Annuall 2000). Founded as part of a movement of new centers designed for adult women considering entry or reentry into education or the workforce, often after children were grown or after a divorce. Over the years, we have continued assisting women with personal and professional development and specifically with transition issues to enter or return to college/workforce.

• Offered Continuing Education Courses, 1978-1996
• Four Take Back the Night Marches prior to and including 1983 (which included nationally recognized speakers Andrea Dworkin and Sonia Johnson).
• A Take Back the Night Rally in the Spring of 2005.
• Annual Every Woman's Festival, 1983-1991.
• Returning Women's Services significantly enhanced, 1986-Present.
• Sexual Assault Free Environment (S.A.F.E.) Program, 1990-Present.
• Moved from the little house on "token row" to Webb University Center, November 1993.
• Women's Institute for Leadership Development (W.I.L.D.), 1996-Present.
• Involved in First Annual Womengineers Day in April 2001.