A message from the director
Welcome to the website of the Center for Research on Violence Against Women. The Center has as its mission advancing the empirical study of intimate partner violence, rape, stalking, and psychological maltreatment. The urgency and impatience with which we undertake our mission reflects a belief that scientific discovery cannot be for the sake of science alone, as we are ever mindful of the women on whose behalf our efforts are undertaken. The final judgement of whether the Center meets its mission is, ultimately, in their hands.
The Center has three primary areas of work: research, scholarship and public service. On the pages of this website, you will find activities describing our interdisciplinary research efforts and our work to strengthen the academic preparation of students. Our mission also includes public service, and as described on those pages of this site, many of these efforts are directed toward offering support to the work of advocates and practitioners. There may be no place where we hope our work will be felt more than in the battered women’s shelters and rape crisis centers that serve every day on the front lines of the fight for women’s lives.
The Center for Research on Violence Against Women owes its current and future success to many partners, including our extraordinary faculty advisory team, UK’s Provost Dr. Kumble Subbaswamy, the Center’s Advisory Committee, and to our many donors whose generosity leaves us so very humbled. The Center’s creation, however, is to the credit of just a few people who deserve special thanks. In 2001, when the idea for a Center was first conceived in this advocate’s mind, I benefited from the strong support of Governor Paul E. Patton and First Lady Judi C. Patton. We could not have taken the idea any farther without the express and generous support of UK President Lee T. Todd, Jr. His early and strong support and that of former UK Provost Michael T. Nietzel meant everything to our creation and to our early success.
To all our Center partners, past, present and future, we hope ours is an indebtedness that will be repaid to you in the measure of quality research in the short run and a contribution to the safety and wellbeing of women in the long run. It will be to your credit that we do both.
Carol E. Jordan, Director