- Evening, this is Carol Smith. Bringing you a feminist perspective. Tonight, we are pleased to have on the show as a guest, not as the moderator, Dr. Emily Taylor, Dean of women at the University of Kansas. Also joining us for the show, Dr. Kayla Stroop, Associate Dean of women at the University of Kansas. Tonight, Emily, we are putting you in the guest role because we want to talk about you and the things that you've done during the time that you've been at the University of Kansas. You are now leaving the University of Kansas in January to assume a new position. - Emily, as many of you may have read in the newspaper is going to Washington DC to be director of the office of women in higher education for the American Council on Education. It's an higher executive position and she will be the only woman executive with the American Council on Education. We're very proud of Emily and very glad that you'll be representing us very well in Washington. Emily came to us in 1956 from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she was Associate Dean of women. At that time Franklin Murphy was chancellor of the university. And since then, we've had Clarke Wescoe, Lawrence Chalmers, Raymond Nichols, and Archie Dykes. Emily has been here through four changes of chancellors, a total of 18 and a half years from 1956 to 1974. She has greatly enhanced our campus and we're very, very pleased that we had the fortune to have her on our campus for that many years. Where you were loyal and a dedicated for that many years. And we're very pleased that we had you here. - Well, Emily, why don't you tell us exactly now what you'll be doing in Washington in your new position, perhaps you better clarify for us and for the listeners what ACE, American Council on Education is, and how it serves higher education. - Yes, American Council on Education is a voluntary association of colleges and universities with headquarters at the American Center for Higher Education, on 1 Dupont Circle. So that will be in Washington, DC. So that will be my new office address. The council exists as also charity organizations do to serve the interests of its members and practically every college and university in the United States is a member of the American Council. As to the specific question of what I will be doing, this is a much more difficult one to answer. I can tell you that the major thrust to the office will be to analyze what is happening to women in the administrative positions and to formulate programs and assist, I hope in changing practices that will make it possible for women to be fairly considered for a high level administrative positions. And this will involve also of course working with women who are interested in preparing themselves for such positions and helping them to increase their expertise. I know that sounds a very vague but remember that this is a new office and I hope that I can be instrumental in designing it in such a way that these things will work because basically the equality of opportunity in higher education is tremendously important. If it doesn't happen there, it is not going to happen anywhere in the country in business or in government or anywhere else because education I'm sure in the opinion of all of us is the key to the whole thing. - Now, when did ACE establish this position and what precipitated that? - They established it in principle in 1972, after having for the first time an annual conference devoted entirely to the issue of women in higher education so that the Council itself, which is composed of elected officers, and then elected board of of people in higher education decided them that they would establish such an office and essentially see what happened at least to express their concern and their interest. the position that I'm taking was a filled for one year but it has been vacant now for about six months. And so in essence, we're really starting all over again. - I think what precipitated, the interest in of all people in what seems like a very new, although it's not new but certainly a reinforced thrust in our country toward the kind of thing that the country was established on, the basis in which it was established in the first place of giving equal opportunity to everyone. - And your concerns, as you mentioned will be directed toward women in administrative positions in higher education. - Mm-hmm. There are some people who are teaching in colleges who wish to continue teaching and they're not interested in administration just as there are many men who are not interested in administration. What such women are interested in is an opportunity to progress through the ranks the way anyone else does and on in exactly the same basis. I think, as I'm sure you know, that is a very bad mistake for women to ask for any kind of special favors. I think it's not necessary. Women are just as intelligent and they're just as well prepared, but we have had fewer women than we have a man who had prepared themselves at the highest level to, for any kind of position. And they're in higher education. Nevertheless there are still quite a number who have exactly the same preparation and exactly the same interest as men have. And it is to these women that we're dedicating this office especially those who are interested in administration. A lot of women of course don't know whether they're interested or not because they haven't had an opportunity to find out you know, what is involved. And so there has been one conference and it will probably be repeated, of women who think they might be interested in administrative positions. On that occasion, when the ACE had this conference, it was to be limited to 40 women and they limited it to 40 and plan the program around that because they felt that there really probably were not a great number who would be interested. The applications for a place at this conference were so astronomical in number that it was expanded to 90 which fewer than half of the very well-qualified women who applied to be in it. And this is just to find out what it's all about and to express an interest in the administrative positions. - Most exciting situation that you're gonna be entering. We certainly anticipate a lot of close contact with you while you're there so that we can keep hopefully on the cutting edge of what's happening. - We will, I certainly, hope that will happen. - Okay. Yesterday at a reception honoring Emily, held here in Lawrence, Dr. William Bell for the vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Kansas announced the renaming of the women's resource and career planning center, which is located in 222 Strong Hall and which Emily founded a number of years ago, Kayla, I think you have the contents of the plaque that was presented to Emily at that time. Will you read the inscription for us? - Yes I would. The Emily Taylor Resource and Career Center for women named in honor of Dr. Emily Taylor, who was Dean of women at the University of Kansas, 1956 through 1974, developed the center. Then we added a tribute to him, why? Because we felt that those words and his dedication was not all we wanted to say. She continually enhances the place of women in our society, inspires women by her personal attentions and serves as a highly visible model worthy of annulation. We use some of Emily's very own words that she, - Has used there about myself. no, not just about you mommy but that she's used in describing other people, but we thought they were most fitting for Emily herself. We also wanted to thank her for her leadership and her stimulating ideas and her personal attention over the years. And we felt that her ideas about the center in 19, well earlier, actually the 1970 but finally formalized in 1970 made this a fitting tribute to her. - Thank you. We had many of the resources but they weren't organized in a way that people could use them. as the physical resources. What we have always had, were the human resources to do the kind of thing that such a center should in my opinion, be engaged in but we didn't attach a name to it. And we didn't have the physical facilities organized to make it easy for women and men too to use as they can now. - Perhaps we should briefly describe what is located in the Emily Taylor Center. Kayla, do you have ? - We have over 100 topical notebooks dealing with the whole realm of subjects of concern to women and men, current magazines, leaflets and government documents, current publications over 500 titles of hard back and paperback book offerings, career planning aids and entire career file, many multimedia resources, and then as Emily mentioned, individual and human resources both the faculty and staff at the campus and many different groups operate out of our center and use our center from everything from writing term papers to developing their career planning for their lifestyles. We have a staff member who always says with a smile that she really feels they're about 17,000 term papers incorporated in that one room. And at this time of year, we feel that way too, when we're in the middle of finals week. - I think it's nice that people learn in this particular way. I'm sure we have lots of people who there are people you know at every stage and some come in at really just to look around and wonder you say what is all this about, they've really given no thought at all to their lives thus allowing things to happen to them and I think that the awareness of great many people have been raised just to really am walking through and they see something and pick it up, or they begin to ask questions about it. And this is really the beginning of wisdom. - In addition to the renaming of the center, we have also established a Fund. So the University of Kansas Endowment Association, the Emily Taylor Resource and Career Planning Center, Fund so that we are able to receive and acknowledge and administer funds that people would like to donate to enhance the center and to enhance our number of offerings we have. And these donors and gifts will be maintained and the materials will be purchased from the Fund. And it will be in identified as gifts and in honor of Emily. - And I understand that it's through the endowment association. - That's right. - That's right. - I'm deeply honored of course, by all this. And somewhat surprised at my lack of a student is because as of yesterday afternoon, it was a total surprise to me. - Well, Emily this is certainly a very visible contribution that you've made to the University of Kansas and its students, and indeed the women of Kansas. But we'd like to spend a couple of minutes with you talking about some of your other contributions to the University of Kansas too. Where should we leap in? There've been so many things that you've done and the most wonderful thing that we've seen in the past two months since it's been known that you are leaving, is the feeling that faculty and staff and students have for the fact that you've been here and they know you've done a lot to enhance their situation and to make the University of Kansas a better place to be. And I think that that's very heartwarming. It's very heartwarming to us. - And so it is to. - And it's just very exciting to hear people talk about it. And so I guess we'd like to bring up some of those things. - Well, we can talk about a lot of things funny, amusing things and things that happened in some of the earlier years. I did wanna read it or tell you a little bit about the Jayhawker in 1956 when Emily arrived. Emily probably doesn't even remember there was a full page in the Jayhawker dedicated to her. And it said our new Dean of women, picture of Emily, and she was referred to in this article as the busiest woman on campus, even in 1956, they recognized how busy she was, - . and they called her a strikingly attractive brunette whose intense eyes belie a subtle sense of humor. And Emily probably doesn't even remember that beginning tribute that was made during 1956. - Well, I certainly hope that I selected that Journal to take with me. - I think that's, I think that's one and you Will Chamberlain were the stars of the 1956 Jayhawker. Other things that that happened very early when Emily arrived that I guess at that point if we had been sensitive enough to pick up clues we would have known what was to come. But I remember that one of the first things we started talking about when Emily arrived was senior keys, our hours then were for women, not for men, were 10:30, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday night and 11 o'clock on Wednesday night, that was date night and 12 o'clock on Friday night and one o'clock on Saturday and Sunday. And the first that Emily started raising the questions about was case for senior women. Do you have any memories of that, Emily? - Well, yes. I have a great number of memories that, I don't remember it exactly in that way. What I do remember was the the fact that women students who for years had made their own regulations, who had decided on what hours they were going to keep. And so far as I know, nobody had taken any part in this other than that, it said that it was supposed to be approved by the Dean of women. Incidentally, I would certainly like to pay tribute to my predecessors because my immediate predecessors were Martha Peterson whom many people in our radio audience I'm sure will know. And before her Margaret Hubei, both of whom had set up an arrangement under which I came which made it much easier than it would have been had I been proceeded by the stereotype that so often people have of the Dean of women, these were both liberal women with great deal of understanding. They've done extremely well since they left Kansas. Martha Peterson is the president of Barnard college. One of the very few women presidents in non-Catholic schools in the whole country. So that what I came into and this was of course true throughout the United States was a situation where the women got together once a year to decide on what the rules were with representatives from every living group on the campus. And basically their discussion was whether or not it should be 15 minutes later or half an hour later. Nobody ever talked about making it earlier, but just making it later. But it apparently had and apparently do, too much of anyone that that it wasn't necessary to have any hours at all, that we certainly should be responsible enough to decide for themselves just as men did what time they came in at night. As a matter of fact, in the opinion of many of us, even freshmen women were considerably better able to decide than many of the freshmen, men who came. And yet this had been the tradition all the way along. - University was hot in the grips of . Everyone thought that we were just like home. - And that was, of course expected. Just to go back many, many years long before the time of any of us. I do think it needs to be said that it had it not been that someone took responsibility along the line, had agreed to take some responsibility for women students, we might have been many, many years later never getting into colleges in the first place, because certainly in the Victorian days, parents were not going to agree to their daughters going off to school without anybody there to be concerned about them at all. And the first ones who went, of course there weren't any residence halls and there weren't any sorority houses certainly no scholarship halls and people simply made arrangements with a substitute parent. So that in essence when colleges first established personnel officers it was to make group living possible and to attract women to the college, by saying, if you come here, we will see to it that your reputation is not ruined as a consequence of it. - When they gradually worked around the situation of senior keys, then the situation just sort of expanded from there, didn't it, Kayla? - But I think Emily doesn't give herself enough credit here, although she certainly never did tell women students what to do, the role that she played was one of a facilitator and broadening our horizons. And I was a student at that time and I do remember that some of the ideas that she suggested that we think about, we really never had thought about. And I remember that she suggested, you know new ways of devising what the students thought or what the other students wanted. And she suggested the rules, convention, and many ways in which we could at least broaden our thinking, which a lot of us were fairly comfortable staying in that same path. And lots of times gesture suggestion of another way to do something was the way in which our horizons were broadened. - One of the most maddening things that I can recall is the fact that they reason that it was given by so many women for not wanting to take responsibility for themselves was that it was so convenient. - Oh, well, - Yes, I set up to myself. I remember that. - I remember being a hall director and how many times we've heard the woman say, oh, I'm sorry, I have to go in now. - And she really wanted to but she said . My hall director standing there but slammed it over. - And we said things like, we have our meetings. I can remember that great one, we have our meetings, because we locked the doors. and everybody was there. - Everybody was there. some possibility that meeting attendance hasn't been quite the same. but I don't know that we've lost a lot. - In then in the fall of 56, the first fall, I came, one of the funniest things which happened was that I was called upon by the president and the standards chairman, every group had a standards chairman, at one of her sorority houses. And they told me that they were having great deal of difficulty with the three of their members who simply would not come in at night when they were supposed to. I got the impression of her and they asked me if I would help them, if I would talk to these women and try to help them to see how important this was. And while I didn't want to do, you know, turn them off. and I agreed to talk with them, and I thought that this meant that these women were staying out all night or were coming in at two or three in the morning and disturbing other people. And so I said, well, I would need some details if I was going to talk with them. So they brought me these details shortly before the three women arrived. One of them had been late three times. And in no case later than 15 seconds, another one, her worst offense was coming in 45 seconds after they closed the door. And the worst, one of all was a minute and a half late. So it was extremely difficult for me to carry on this conversation, which I could do of course only in my own mind and honestly, only in terms of that, they had agreed through their properly designated representatives to a given hour and that therefore they did have an obligation not to bother other people by making them lock the door and then wait and then coming unlock the door again. But I will admit to you that I felt very foolish in this kind of a rule. - Well, the perspective of a lot of people have changed in the time that you've been here . And I think that we're also pleased and proud that you were able to help a lot of people change their perspective. - It would have changed anyway. I'm sure you all know, we just perhaps got a little ahead of our time because we were the second school in the country to offer the freedom of a sort, even to the seniors, all of whom were of age even when being of age meant being 21 years old. - I think another great transition that you really helped the women students make was that, AWS which is Associated Women Students had seen their main role for years as the regulation of women students. And so on many campuses when the hours and some of the rules went by the wayside, many AWSs said, well, what was the purpose of existing? You know, what is there to do? And so they would disband or fall by the wayside for one reason or another. And we were able on this campus, through your leadership to make at least a wonderful transition into what I consider a very positive force on the commission and the use of commission, and this too, was done long before any other groups did it. - When did you first have a committee that became the commissioner - In '58, we established the first committee and we called it the roles of women in the 20th century. The reason we called it that was that Franklin Murphy who was the chancellor at that time, came down I wanted to call it the status of women committee and nobody was using the word status. And he came down one day and said, you know I wonder if you'd consider taking out that word status as is kind of a bad connotation and could you call it something else? So I dreamed of this role as women in the 20th century because the word was not nearly as important to me is the concept. And I wanted to keep as many people with us as possible and certainly Franklin Murphy always was. In fact, we had tremendous cooperation through the years from the chancellors. One of the chancellors who attended the reception, yesterday reminded me that although when I came here was long before the days of such committees that what amounted to such committee, he was on. And I recall that very well because I remember the first night that I arrived there was a dinner and those were the people that Franklin Murphy wanted to have meet me and wanted their opinions, obviously. One of the greatest changes I think is that there were no students on that committee. This hasn't occurred to anybody. And actually it probably was certainly would not have occurred to the students either. I mean, they were in a very accepting stage of, you know whatever the faculty and the administration think is right, you know, must be okay. They wouldn't pick the wrong person. - We were in college then and we were a bunch of head nod, or so I guess. That's really interesting how marvelous to have that connection, you know from beginning to now. I think we should also mention that significant contribution, I believe you made by bringing the Society of Queens onto this campus. And this is an opportunity for young women in their college careers to be able to be recognized. - And to assume leadership positions. I think that's the main value of any kind of a women's organization. It does mean that whatever is done must be done by the women themselves. There's no way in which they can fall back and say, well I'll take a subsidiary or behind the scenes role if anything is going to happen and things do happen, then it's a way of giving opportunities to very young women to develop management leadership skills. And they certainly rise to the occasion. So matter of fact, much of our women's leadership on the campus has come from our earliest halls which are still primarily freshmen halls GSP and Corbin with notable exceptions, of course of people who have chosen to live elsewhere. And I think that's as true today as it was in 1956, although in 1956 is about all we had. - Well, you certainly have made a lot of contributions to the residence halls movement which you were just mentioning. And last week, the association university of residence halls honored you with a reception. They have, I'd say a very high opinion of you and what you've contributed. Kayla was just talking before the show about the very unusual invitation that they sent to the reception, which documented a lot of what they felt contributed to the success and the evolution of the very well-known and highly regarded university of residence hall system. - The association of university residence hall is a relatively new organization. And I think the University of Kansas did play a distinctive role in getting us started with of course the help of great many people. I'm deeply grateful to them for the recognition of what role I did play but I played it along with great many other people. - But they always felt that you were very supportive of the university residence halls and their programming and always kept them in the forefront of your ideas. - And I think it's very indicative for how the students have felt about you, you know, for the entire time that you've been associated with the University of Kansas. And we want to wish you, well, Emily. Our program's coming to a close. We just can't say enough about how much we'll miss you but how proud we are that you're going to the American Council of Education in January. - Well, I certainly will miss everyone here. And most particularly the people 220 Strong Hall who I have every faith will continue the kind of programming that we've already begun. And I don't mean continue it unchanged because that's been the distinctive part I believe. And the only contribution I feel I really have made is in trying to keep up to date with the students where they are and helping them to move from that place. - All right, it's been a wonderful and very significant contribution. We thank you. We wish you well, good night. Thank you for listening to a feminist perspective.