A renovated Pembroke Hall reopened last month as the new home of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women. The 128-year-old building had been closed since May and was last renovated in 2008.
Boasting updated study spaces, an exhibition hall, and an archive workshop, the building now houses all of the Pembroke Center’s programs, including the gender and sexuality studies concentration, the Pembroke Seminar, and the center’s journal, *differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies*.
“Bringing back everyone under one roof in Pembroke Hall has been great,” Wendy Lee MA’05 PhD’12, the Pembroke Center’s director of academic programs and outreach, told *The Herald*. “There’s a sense of coherence and excitement about the connections and collaborations that we can continue to foster and grow.”
Previously, the Pembroke Center shared Pembroke Hall with the Cogut Institute for the Humanities. Some of the center’s faculty offices and archives were also housed in Alumnae Hall, which Lee said made coordination among its initiatives a challenge. But now students and staff can more easily connect GNSS class content with archival materials and articles in *differences*, she noted.
Charlotte Brandman ’27, a GNSS concentrator, said she appreciates Pembroke Hall’s new common areas. “It’s a really peaceful place to study,” she said.
The renovation project also involved the construction of a reading room and workshop for the center’s archive, which dates back to 1982. The archive primarily houses material related to women and gender at Brown, feminist theory, and feminist activism in Rhode Island.
Until now, the collection lacked a physical space on par with those at similar centers and institutions, said Mary Murphy, the center’s archivist. Previously, the archive was stored atop a spiral staircase in Alumnae Hall—a location Murphy said “cut us off from the Brown community.”
The archive’s new room is “much more accessible,” said Noa Brown ’26, a GNSS concentrator. “It’s just a nicer space to be in. There’s comfortable seating and it’s more inviting.”
Murphy added that the renovation “is completely game-changing to our mission.”
“It makes our ability to meet the needs of students, faculty and the public possible,” she said.
Brandman highlighted that the archive’s workshop will provide students with a secure area to complete assignments with sensitive information. She recalled a previous assignment that involved examining the metadata of letters from incarcerated sex workers, emphasizing the importance of having a safe, dedicated space.
“In this time of immense political violence and discourse and subjugation of women and queer people, we are creating this safe space,” Brandman said.
“There’s a history of women supporting women” at Brown, said Shauna Stark ’76 P’10, who funded the renovation. It was through the fundraising efforts of women, including Sarah Elizabeth Doyle, that Pembroke Hall was erected in 1897 as the first building of the Women’s College, which was later renamed Pembroke College before ultimately merging with Brown in 1971.
Stark, who identifies as a “huge feminist,” said she was inspired to support the archive after taking a course at Stanford University about the history of Paris. She felt the course neglected the contributions of women.
“It kind of dawned on me that (the professor) was working from primary source material,” Stark said. “There’s probably no primary source material that was preserved about what women were doing in the 1900s, 1800s in Paris.”
This realization sparked her desire to support primary source research centered on women’s experiences.
Stark particularly emphasized the work of the “impressive group of women” at the Pembroke Center who work to achieve this goal.
“They just blow me away,” Stark said. “They’re so brilliant, they’re so hard working, they’re so dedicated, and I think they’re a tremendous support for students.”
https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/11/renovated-pembroke-hall-provides-new-home-for-research-on-women-gender-at-brown