Bryn Mawr at Harvard: A History of Trailblazing

Harvard University President-Elect Drew Gilpin Faust '68 is not the first Bryn Mawr woman to prise open doors of opportunity at Harvard.

Hetty Goldman '03 literally broke ground when she became the first woman to direct an archaeological excavation for Harvard, under the auspices of the Fogg Museum, in 1921. She later became the first female professor at the School of Humanistic Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton

Agnes Mongan '27 became the first female curator at the Fogg Museum in 1947 when the university finally lifted its policy banning women from being appointed curators (until that time, she held the title "Keeper of Drawings").

The following year, a Bryn Mawr alumna named Helen Maud Cam became the first woman to break into the ranks of Harvard's tenured faculty. Cam, a British historian, had studied at Bryn Mawr on a graduate fellowship in 1908 and 1909 before returning to England to complete her Ph.D.

In October 2000, shortly after the formation of the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard Magazine wryly noted that “While Harvard was busy merging with Radcliffe, another women's college, one with actual faculty members and courses of instruction, was busy taking over Harvard.” The brief item made note of several Bryn Mawr graduates “now shaping Harvard.” The list included Faust, then dean-elect of the Radcliffe Institute. Other notable Mawrters cited:

Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule '50, Ph.D. '56, was a towering figure in Harvard's classics department from 1970 until her retirement in 1994. Her scholarship comprehended classical language and literature, art and archaeology. She served on the first committee on the status of women at Harvard, which issued a report and recommendations in 1971.

Hanna Holborn Gray '50 was then the sole female member of the seven-member Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body. By the time she joined the Harvard Corporation, Gray had already accumulated an impressive list of “firsts”: she and Marian Wright Edelman were the first women appointed to the Yale Corporation, in 1971; she was the first woman to be appointed an officer of Yale University when she was named provost in 1974; she served as acting president of Yale, the first woman to hold that post at an Ivy League University, for 14 months in 1977 and '78; and she became the first woman to lead a major research university when she began her 15-year tenure as president of the University of Chicago in 1978.

Mary Maples Dunn, Ph.D. '59, served as the acting dean of the Radcliffe Institute until Faust's appointment. Before going to Harvard, Dunn had served as Dean of the College at Bryn Mawr and then as president of Smith College.

Myra Mayman '66 was then director of Harvard's Office of the Arts. Mayman had also served as a Bryn Mawr trustee.

Anna Lo Davol '64, also a former trustee, was a physician at Harvard's University Health Services.

Linda A. Hill '77, Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, is also a Bryn Mawr trustee; the Harvard Magazine item noted that she was one of few women and few African Americans among the business school's tenured faculty.

But Hill can count among her tenured colleagues Rosabeth Moss Kanter '64, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, who in 1989 became the first female editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Kanter's classmate Sally Zeckhauser '64, Harvard's administrative vice president, chairs the Bryn Mawr Board of Trustees. Zeckhauser says that she first met Faust about 10 years ago through the Bryn Mawr board, little knowing that Faust's career path would eventually lead her to Harvard. But she is delighted that Harvard Magazine's tongue-in-cheek warning of a Bryn Mawr takeover has proved so oddly prophetic.

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