Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 28, 2001Volume 30, Number 4



Yale faculty members Elizabeth Dillon (far left) and Judith Resnik (far right) discuss issues for women in institutions of higher learning with Bryn Mawr president Nancy J. Vickers, Duke University president Nannerl O. Keohane and Johnetta Cole, a member of the faculty at Emory University who has served as president of both Hunter College in New York and Spelman College in Atlanta.



Panelists share experiences on matters of gender

When it comes to the challenges facing women today, contends noted educator Johnetta B. Cole, it's time to institute the "Noah Principle."

"There's no more credit for predicting the rain," asserts Cole. "It's time to start building the Ark."

Cole was one of the featured speakers at the "Gender Matters" conference held at the Law School Sept. 20-21. The event was organized by the Yale Women Faculty Forum.

The conference, one of the most recent celebrations of Yale's 300th birthday, examined the evolving role and influence of the most recent members of the University community -- women.

In a series of panels, noted alumnae, current Yale faculty and other noteworthy women discussed and debated the issues that members of the female gender encounter as academics, scientists, artists, global leaders and entrepreneurs. Among the alumnae participants were children's rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, environmentalist Frances Beinecke, novelist Gloria Naylor and film producer Sarah Pillsbury.

Fittingly, the conference opened with a panel on "Women and Universities."

Dolores Haydn, professor of American studies at Yale, welcomed participants by noting, "Gender equality has altered the intellectual agenda within the University and the larger world." She predicted that gender-related questions will continue to "influence our definition of excellence" as Yale enters its fourth century.

President Richard C. Levin, in his introductory remarks, acknowledged that Yale's 300-year history was one "in which women, shamefully, have played a little part until recent years." However, he promised, "that will be different in the next 300 years. ...

"The Provost and I have made a real commitment to increasing the number of women in the senior faculty," said the President, noting that Yale has "made a lot of progress in the last 10th of our 300-year history" and that he was "optimistic" it would make even bigger strides in the future.

In charting the changes that have occurred in recent years, Provost Alison Richard pointed out that, when she joined the Yale faculty in 1972, there were only two tenured women in Yale College, six tenured women University-wide and no female Yale administrators. Today, by contrast, she said, three of the Yale officers are women, as are three deans of the University's graduate and professional schools, three residential college masters and two of the four divisional directors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Three women who have served as presidents of institutions of higher learning then offered their insights into the complexities of coping with gender issues.

Cole, a member of the faculty at Emory University who has served as president of both Hunter College in New York and Spelman College in Atlanta, contended that gender plays a major role in how universities are organized as well as "what is taught, by whom and to whom."

She also raised a theme that resonated through many of the conference's subsequent panels: that women are not a monolithic group. "If you have seen one woman, you have not seen us all," said Cole, noting that the female gender is further subdivided by race, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation, among other factors. She warned against letting these distinctions become divisive forces, noting that "the more eyes there are, the more viewpoints there will be."

Nannerl Overholser Keohane '67 Ph.D., former president of Wellesley College and the current president of Duke University, offered observations about gender equality from both sides of the coeducational divide. According to Keohane, it is easy to discern the importance that members of either gender have played in an institution's history by looking at its "iconography" -- i.e., the portraits that hang on its walls and the figures that are celebrated in its history. At Wellesley, once coyly described as an "Adam-less Eden," there are a great many pictures of women, noted Keohane, whereas schools like Duke or Yale abound with images of men. This iconography, contended Keohane, sends clear messages about an institution's "sense of self and who matters." Equally important and equally revealing at traditionally male institutions, she said, are the number of women on the faculty and in leadership positions, and the importance placed on scholarship by women in the school's curriculum.

Nancy J. Vickers '76 Ph.D. witnessed firsthand the trials and tribulations that attended the introduction of coeducation both at Yale when she was a graduate student, and at Dartmouth College during her years as a junior faculty member. Ironically, as the current president of the all-women Bryn Mawr College, Vickers said, she no longer struggles with issues of gender equality, but rather with introducing racial and ethnic diversity into the campus community. However, the underlying issue is the same, she said. "How do you change an academic culture? I think it goes past the assimilation of a population."

While the panelists could offer no simple formula for promoting such change, they encouraged the conference participants to continue to discuss the issues raised at the event. In particular, noted Keohane, glancing around the almost all-female audience, "You need to talk about these issues with your male colleagues."

-- By LuAnn Bishop


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Yale will proceed with Tercentennial celebration

Peabody's insects inspire fascination in scholars far and near

Talk by philanthropist surgeon to open United Way appeal

Service of Remembrance

J. Lloyd Suttle is appointed deputy provost

Benefit concert to help families of tragedy's fallen

Convocation to celebrate Yale's long tradition of theological education . . .

Grant supports professors' study of dwindling voter turnout

Panelists share experiences on matters of gender

Famed Bolshoi Theatre ballerina describes a life devoted to dance

Forest management certification program is launched

Students win grants for environmental research around the world

Insects are special of the day on Peabody Museum menu

Remembering the struggle

Trumbull Lecture will examine 1828 treatise on liberal education

Employee Day at the Bowl

Campus Notes



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