The Center for Women Students will start this semester in a newly expanded and renovated office suite while its priorities of combating sexual assault and improving campus safety remain the same.

The center, in its fifth year, now has an additional office and a larger reception area with increased space for clerical work and the center's library, said Sabrina Chapman, the center's director.

"I think that (the expansion and renovation project) conveys that the University thinks this work is important," said Patty Johnstone, assistant director for the center.

William Asbury, University Vice President of Student Services, said the expansion is a response to greater demand and interest in the center.

"The renovation is a recognition of the importance of the center to students and members of the University community, and of the quality of work done by Sabrina Chapman and Patty Johnstone and their staff," added Asbury.

Chapman and Asbury would not comment on renovation costs.

Renovations, which began in early November and should be completed by the end of next week, has doubled the working space of the center, Chapman said.

Previously, the center consisted of Chapman's office with a smaller reception and clerical area in 102 Bouke Building. Johnstone worked in a small office down the hall.

"Space was cramped with students using the center's library for research and the secretary supervising work study students in the same small space," Johnstone said.

Because of her office's location and cramped conditions, Johnstone said students may have questioned whether the problem of sexual assault was a priority for the administration.

"We are now more centralized and that is very beneficial," Chapman said, adding that the expansion and renovation project should enhance efficiency.

Johnstone said she will work with student counselors throughout the semester to develop acquaintance rape education and prevention programs for fall of 1990.

"As peers, students can do some things that I can't," Johnstone said.

The student counselors will help meet the increased interest in sexual assault prevention on campus which has become too demanding for one person, Johnstone said.

Another priority for this semester will be continuing to make visible the unique situation of women who are doubly discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or disability, Chapman said.

Part of this effort will include sponsoring educational programming on the interaction of racism and sexism as well as co-sponsoring the Contemporary Scholarship on Lesbian and Gay Lives Speaker Series.

"Part of helping all women students means helping women who are doubly discriminated against," Chapman said.

Continuing efforts to improve the academic environment is another priority the center will be working on this semester. The center will work with the Faculty Senate's committees on Student Life and Faculty Affairs on the "chilly classroom environment" for women and curriculum integration in order to achieve this goal, she added.

The center will hold an open house as soon as renovation is completed, Chapman said.

The following programs are planned for January although dates are tentative:

-- A brown bag lunch from noon to 1 p.m. Jan. 17 in 120 Boucke Building featuring a videotape of feminist scholar and political activist Angela Davis' Nov. 16 presentation.

-- Eve Kosofsky Sedgewich, professor of English at Duke University, will give a speech entitled "Denaturalizing Heterosexuality" at 8 p.m. Jan. 29 in the HUB Assembly Room as part of the Contemporary Scholarship on Lesbian and Gay Lives Speaker Series.