Libra's astrological symbol is a scale -- a most fitting zodiac sign for Elaine DiLapi.
The director of the Penn Women's Center has spent the greater part of her career balancing out the sexes and promoting gender equality.
"Our job is to be a watchdog around women's issues and to ensure educational equity here at Penn," DiLapi says. She adds that she dedicates herself "to make sure there are as few barriers as possible in terms of women's development."
Since assuming the role, DiLapi has enhanced the Women's Center -- which marked its 30th anniversary this year and is celebrating this year's Homecoming weekend with a number of events -- into a community for women across Penn's campus. It now offers individual advising and counseling, leadership development, educational services and training.
The position has become more than a job for DiLapi -- in some ways, it is her life. But she says she is OK with that, as her work is in line with her own convictions.
"I am very fortunate to have a job that is consistent with my personal values," DiLapi says. "It really fits into my commitment to social justice."
Associate Director of the Women's Center Gloria Gay works closely with DiLapi on a daily basis and agrees that DiLapi's work is often on her mind.
"Anything that she reads or talks about always relates back to women's issues," Gay says. "She is always thinking about... the impact that any decision would have on women."
DiLapi's educational endeavors in Penn's Graduate School of Social Work in the late '70s prepped her to excel in the ever-changing field of gender issues.
"My training here gave me the skills and the knowledge base to be able to do that," DiLapi says.
DiLapi adds that even before her grad school days and the official emergence of feminism, she was still devoted to social rights issues and was in-tune with social injustices.
She had a unique major -- youth and community studies -- at Stony Brook University in her native Long Island. During her college years, she was required to take a series of intensive community service classes, working with adolescents to help give them a voice in their community.
And now, she's applying those skills to help give Penn women a voice.
The center provides a networking opportunity for "women to come together and talk about their experiences so they can identify the common thread," she says.
Under her guidance and through her innovative programs and informational pamphlets, the Women's Center at Penn has been used as a model around the country.
DiLapi's nationwide influence also stems from her work as a part-time professor in the Graduate School of Social Work. She has been invited to guest lecture for classes on campus, as well as for several other universities.
And because of her intellectual base on gender issues, she has been tapped for committees concerning everything from the retention rates of students to case reviews for the Philadelphia Police.
Although she's constantly running around, DiLapi's home base is her pink-trimmed office, complete with a floral brocade couch and bejeweled lamps. It is located on Locust Walk, right in the heart of campus. But this wasn't always so -- until 1996, the Women's Center was tucked away in Houston Hall.
And before April of 1973, many of the vital issues affecting women were also hidden.
In the early '70s, a rapid succession of sexual offenses on and around Penn's campus prompted a group of students, professors and staffers to stage a sit-in. The protest demanded the University to take bolder prevention measures and security efforts to protect women.
The Women's Center spawned from the sit-in and opened in the fall of 1973. DiLapi assumed her position as director in 1985 and had her job cut out for her. She has since been working to fulfill the original demands of the sit-in, including self-defense classes, female physicians and an increase in the number of female personnel on the University's police force.
DiLapi says that she has seen substantial change in the program and is thrilled that "over the past 30 years [these issues] have been integrated into the mainstream of campus life."
As the times change and different gender trends evolve, DiLapi says that her responsibilities as director must adapt to the new needs of women on campus.
In the early '90s, when acquaintance rape emerged as a prominent problem, programs also shifted from stressing self-defense and prevention to educational programs instructing women to identify abuse and rape.
DiLapi says that during her tenure things have gotten both better and worse.
The number of reported sexual and abuse crimes have increased. However, DiLapi said that the statistics may just represent that more women feel comfortable coming forward to discuss their issues.
"My fear is that women are suffering in their own silence," DiLapi says.
DiLapi adds that there have also been some undeniable achievements for the feminism movement on campus.
"The number of women in visible leadership positions has changed dramatically," she says, specifically noting the Penn presidency of Judith Rodin.
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