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125 Years of Women at Penn
Celebration Will Mark Historic Alumnae
Milestone
On November 1-2, 2001, the
Thursday and Friday preceding Homecoming, the University of Pennsylvania
will honor and celebrate 125 Years of Women at Penn. Nearly 2,000
alumnae are expected to return to campus for this extraordinary
event, which will include special performances, spirited parties,
and a variety of intellectual forums, created for and led by distinguished
Penn women. As part of the Celebration, Penn will unveil two striking
additions to campus—the Women's Walkway and the Class of
1949 Generational Bridge—each of which offers donors
| Penn Alumna and NBC News Chief Foreign
Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, CW'67, will be
the Celebration's keynote speaker. |
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the opportunity to permanently recognize
proud Penn alumnae and loyal Penn families.
University Trustee and Chair
of the Celebration, Judith Roth Berkowitz, CW'64, has been working
tirelessly for more than a year on what she believes will be one
of the most important alumni events in Penn's history.
"What started as an acknowledgement
of Penn women has turned into a University-wide celebration,"
said Berkowitz. "We have more than 400 alumnae planning the
event, and each day we gain new insight into Penn's extraordinary
women and the unique role they have played in the evolution of
this University."
Many of these insights have
come from the written record of notable Penn alumnae, including
Gertrude Klein Peirce Easby, one of the first two women to enroll
at Penn in 1876.
"We used to work for seven
or eight hours a day in the laboratory," Gertrude wrote more
than a century ago. "We never said a word to any of the boys
working side by side with us, and they never said a word to us."
A decade later, Anna Robertson
Brown Lindsay, the first women to earn a doctorate at Penn, reflected
on her experience. "We have not yet found out exactly where
the man belongs, and where the woman belongs, in an ideal state,"
she said. "It is in our day that this strange combat is,
so far, at its height."
Sadie T. M. Alexander, the
first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. at Penn and to graduate
from Penn Law, provided another perspective. "I could not
single-handedly make any changes in the position of women at Penn
or of the people of my race," she wrote. "It was best
for me to secure an outstanding record and a solid education so
that when I entered public life I would have the background to
assume responsibility and leadership."
It was, in fact, women like
Gertrude, Anna, and Sadie who made it possible for Penn alumna
Judith Rodin, CW'66, to break a long tradition and become the
first female President of an Ivy League institution.
"I would not be President
of the University of Pennsylvania today were it not for the achievements
of earlier Penn women," said President Rodin. "I hope
that future Penn women will build on what we are accomplishing
today."
If the enthusiasm surrounding
the event is any indication, today's Penn women will do that,
and more.
"This was an event waiting
to happen," said Berkowitz. "We not only have phenomenal
women from the past five decades actively involved in bringing
this together, but we have men who are fully engaged as well."
In fact, it was the enthusiasm
of all alumni—male and female—that took the concept
of the Women's Walkway and expanded it to include the Generational
Bridge.
"For many families, Penn
is a tradition," Berkowitz explained, "That realization
led us to the idea of a generational bridge, where husbands and
wives, fathers and mothers, grandparents, children, and grandchildren
can all be honored together. The symbolism has resonated with
alumni across the generations."
Among the many Generational
Bridge enthusiasts is Trustees' Council of Penn Women Founding
Chair Carol Blum Einiger, CW'70, who shares with her mother (CW'40),
husband (W'69), and son (C'00), as well as countless cousins,
a strong and enduring family connection to the University. "I
thought the idea for the bridge was an inspired one," she
said, "a wonderful opportunity to reaffirm our family's ties
to Penn—past, present, and future."
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