Trail-blazing historian fought for women
First female president of Smith College in U.S. had been U of T professor
Jill Ker Conway, a historian who chronicled the role of women in American society and then made history of her own, serving as the first female president of Smith College and one of the first female board members of several major corporations, died June 1 at her home in Boston. She was 83.
A spokesperson for Smith College, Stacey Schmeidel, confirmed the death but said she did not know the cause.
The Australian-born Conway was just 40 when, in 1975, she became the first woman to lead Smith, the nation’s largest liberal arts institution for women.
In her decade-long tenure, she presided over a transformation that brought the women’s movement to a school domi- nated for more than a century by conservative male faculty and administrators.
“Jill Ker Conway came to Smith at a time when gender roles were being transformed — and there were people here who tried to stand in her way,” Kathleen McCartney, Smith’s current president, said in a statement. “But at a time when the academy didn’t see women as college presidents — or as leaders at all — she demonstrated a leadership that was innovative and effective.”
While Conway paved the way for women such as Judith Rodin, who in 1993 was named the first female president of an Ivy League school, women remain under-represented at the highest levels of academia. A 2017 study by the American Council on Education found they hold just 30 per cent of the top jobs at colleges and universities.
In a wide-ranging career, Conway was an accomplished scholar who focused on ear- ly-20th-century women’s reformers but later wrote a trio of critically acclaimed memoirs, beginning with The Road From Coorain (1989).
The book chronicled her upbringing on a 32,000-acre sheep station and, after finishing in the top of her class at the University of Sydney, the sexism she faced while trying to land a job with the Australian foreign service. In reports on her application, diplomatic officials noted that she was “too good looking” and “too intellectually aggressive,” would “be married within a year” and “never do for diplomacy.”
She spent much of her career fighting to ensure that other women faced better treatment, whether in diplomacy, law, science or the arts.
Conway campaigned for equal pay as a professor at U of T, an effort that caught the attention of the Ontario legislature and resulted in reforms.