Two women, Jeannie Ludlow and Carol Stevens were co-workers neighbors and friends shared a tearful look at each other as they packed up memories of their former department space to move.

Ludlow, the coordinator of Women’s Studies and Stevens, a former Women’s Studies professor, will part with their old office in the Stevenson basement, and beloved office manager, Joseph McLean in September because of the university layoffs and bumping rights.

In a university press release on Aug. 18, 118 civil service, administrative and professional employees were selected for elimination. More than 50 of those positions are vacant with 67 announced for layoff.

Ludlow said the move to a new office is bitter sweet.

“Students don’t always know we’re down here, and coming down into a basement can be creepy especially if you’ve just been hurt,” Ludlow said. “But losing Joe is devastating to us, he’s not just our office manager he’s a part of our Women’s Studies Program.”

Ludlow said McLean worked hard to make the center and Women’s Studies as successful as possible.

McLean took the position of office manager the fall of 2012, but is now being moved to a different office Sept. 18.

“The plan to move the Women’s Resource Center and cut my (position) seemed to be decided while Jeannie Ludlow and I were both off for two months over summer,” said McLean.

Ludlow said she is happy about the move, but wishes she had received a choice in the matter of when and why the transition is happening.

“Our losing Joe is a huge and saddening inconvenience,” Ludlow said.

Stevens said important things occurred in the old office including working on community groups and new ways to handle sexual assault.

“We’ve just implemented our first women’s studies grant for students and Joe did a lot to get that going, and when he wrote me the winners that was a landmark,” Stevens said.

Ludlow said the move would affect work for the first month because on Sept. 3 they need to be at the new office, only days before his departure.

McLean said whoever takes his place will have to cut their job in half, and can only do half of the job for each department.

“In a way the move itself is the silver lining to the cloud because we are getting out of the basement where students will walk by our door,” Ludlow said. “The ugly is that we’re losing Joe.”

Dana Gilbertsen, president of Women’s Empowerment League, said she met McLean two years ago and he has been someone she could rely on.
“Joe single-handedly ran the women’s resource center for us and he was not only efficient, but he was always organized (and) he knew exactly where everything was at,” Gilbertsen said.

Gilbertsen said McLean was a great resource for anyone who needed anything in the women’s resource center.

“The Women’s Resource Center is easily a second home to me. It is a place where I found peace time and time again,” Gilbertsen said. “I spent more hours then was probably healthy and I’ll definitely miss the old space, but at the same time I’m really excited for the new space.”

McLean said the Women’s Resource Center tried to bridge the gap between two of the same communities.

“EIU’s community and Charleston’s community are one in the same so that was my favorite part of this job because it was meaningful,” McLean said. “Women’s studies gave me an opportunity to do things that made a difference other than having a clerical job,”

T’Nerra Butler can be reached at tabutler@eiu.edu or 581-2812