Beyond Girdles and Green Plants: Women's Professional Socialization to College Administration, 1940–1960

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: With and About Higher Education Stakeholders

Abstract

Early graduate programs for deans of women attempted to socialize students into a new profession while also constructing the profession itself and the meaning of being a women professional. To investigate the historical tensions involved in the professional socialization of graduate-level women college administrators, this paper takes as a case study the Student Dean program at Syracuse University from 1940-60. Professionalism was embodied in the women’s behavior in several domains (personal, institutional, organizational), their relationships to primarily male supervisors, and their relationships to faculty members. The course instructors also empowered the women to demand working conditions appropriate to their high administrative positions, agitating for expanded power in the service of undergraduates.

Author

• Rachel Smith, Iowa State University