Three Decades of Reminiscences about Women in the Academy

The following oral history was presented as part of a panel on The Isolation of Women from Each Other in the Academy, at the GLCA Women\u27s Studies Conference in Fall 1980. I came to the United States in 1952 from Pierce College, a women\u27s high school in Athens, Greece. During my years there as a student, I had always taken the friendship and companionship of women for granted. I had excellent teachers in history, psychology, chemistry, art, ancient Greek, physical education, and philosophy—all of them women; and I had come to take for granted the existence of strong and inspiring women role models. Many of these women were single. I did not realize then that this would prove to be a common occurrence for professional women. I still remember them distinctly, for their warmth, their intelligence, their dedication , and their encouragement. The president of the school was also a woman, an American in her sixties, rather eccentric and colorful. Many of the Greek students made fun of her, but I found her rather splendid