Various photographs of Temple Beth Sholom belly dancers at the International Belly Dancers Convention at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Dr. Catherine Bellver is a woman with tenacity. How else could one describe her drive to create the Women's Studies Program spanning fifteen years? As a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages, Dr. Bellver first joined the Women's Studies steering committee in 1979. In the following decade, the committee oversaw the formation of the Women's Studies Program, including: procuring administrative and faculty support, creating bylaws and course criteria, critiquing proposed cross-listed courses, and selecting course offerings. During that period she also worked with a volunteer group to create and staff the first Women's Center on campus. In the early Nineties, she played an instrumental role in the presentation of four public colloquia that addressed key issues pertaining to women. Dr. Bellver acted as interim director of the Women's Studies Program while overseeing the search for a permanent director. She continued to remain involved with the Women's Studies program, serving as faculty member on several committees. She has also worked in the Women's Caucus on the regional and national levels of the Modem Languages Association Dr. Bellver is currently Distinguished Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work has appeared in journals such as Anales de la Literature Espanola Contemporanea, Hispanic Review, Hispanofila, Insula, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Monographic Review/Revista Monografica, Revista de Estudios Modernos, Revista Hispanica Moderna, Romance Notes and Romanic Review. Dr. Bellver's participation in the creation of the Women's Studies Program illustrates how critical institutional and social progress can result from the commitment of a determined group of individuals. Her decades of involvement in creating an academic arena for the study of women and gender issues underscores the significance of women's contributions to the history of Las Vegas. In addition to the history of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas this interview contains information regarding the creation of the first Women's Center on campus.