La Vallee, Laurent

The Prominence of Women in Biology, the Lack of Female Faculty

Date
April 11, 1990

As explained in her interview, Professor Barbara McDonald, who began teaching at Dickinson during the Fall of 1956, described the atmosphere of the campus post the "La Vallee Affair" as being one of widespread conflicting feelings. At the time, being one of the few female faculty members at Dickinson, Professor McDonald did not become conscious of the predominance of men for "it just seemed to be the way it was." Even though there were a large amount of female students enrolled in general biology classes "there were very few women on the faculty."