Penny Rosenthal was recently named the new director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center.

Rosenthal served as the interim director of the Sloss House since November 2000 with Nancy Bevin.

They have both been filling the position since Pamela Thomas left Iowa State last summer to become the assistant dean and director of intercultural affairs at Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, N.Y.

Before being named the director of the Women’s Center, Rosenthal was director of Off Campus and Adult Services Office.

Rosenthal said that she prefers the values of the Midwest and wanted to be closer to her family.

She also wanted to send her children to school in Iowa rather than her former location, Texas.

Rosenthal said one of her greatest accomplishments as interim director was the remodeling of Sloss House’s kitchen.

“The house and the staff needed attention and a commitment that was vocal,” Rosenthal said.

The remodeling, which is still in progress, includes painting the kitchen, putting in new cupboards and countertops and purchasing a new dishwasher.

Bevin also said she felt it was a successful year.

“There were two [activities] that I felt best about,” Bevin said. “One of these was the funding of the Culture Core Grant.”

The Culture Core Grant involved three students who organized a series of conversations for the wives of international students to get cross-cultural perspectives on family life, Bevin said.

Rosenthal said that maintaining programs and services at the Women’s Center was another of her main accomplishments.

As director of the Women’s Center, Rosenthal said she will provide advocacy, referral services and programming for the ISU community, as well as coordinating women’s programs and events.

Through increasing awareness of what the center does, Rosenthal said she also hopes to expand the focus with programs for men, teaching them to increase their respect for women.

Rosenthal said she will do this by having one of her new male graduate assistants, Jeff Cullen, teach men that being supportive and respectful to women is a positive thing and something that women appreciate.

“Men are best at teaching other men that it’s OK to be respectful to women,” Rosenthal said.

“A lot of men don’t realize that women really like being respected.”

Rosenthal said she hopes to increase the involvement with international women and increase the outreach for staff and faculty at Iowa State and that she has several different ideas as to how she will accomplish these goals.

These ideas include offering an orientation for new students, designing programming for first-year female students and increasing publicity, including modernizing and regularly updating the center’s Web page.

“We need to re-establish an identity on campus,” Rosenthal said.

She said she feels that being present on campus is important to students being aware that the Women’s Center exists so they know to use its resources.

In the fall, the Women’s Center will celebrate the centennial of Margaret Sloss’ birth and the center’s 20th anniversary.