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A Leader In Educating Women

In 1870, Hunter College was among the first to champion a pioneering concept: that competitively qualified young women of all races and backgrounds deserve a first-class public higher education. The Normal College, as Hunter was then called, established as a teacher-training school, soon broadened its curriculum to offer a classical liberal arts degree.
Even after becoming co-educational in 1964, Hunter's student body continues to be predominantly female (74%) today. The college remains in the forefront of concern for women's issues.

Historic Firsts and Accomplishments

  • From 1920-1973, among women who held Ph.Ds, more received their undergraduate degrees from Hunter than from any other college in the U.S.
  • Hunter is the only college in the world to produce two women Nobel Prize-winners, (both in Medicine): Rosalyn Yalow in 1977 (for development of radioimmunoassay, a pioneering test to measure concentrations of insulin, hormones, viruses and other substances in humans) and Gertrude Elion in 1988 (for fundamental research into the technology that led to the development of AZT and other chemotherapy drugs).
  • Soia Mentschikoff, the first woman to be named dean of a law school (Harvard) and the first woman partner of a major American law firm, was a graduate of Hunter.
  • The first black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest was human rights advocate and lawyer Pauli Murray, a Hunter alumna.
  • Open to all qualified women, Hunter admitted eight African-American students in 1873 and--prior to the 1950s--enrolled more African-American women than any other institution outside the traditional black colleges. The Wistarians, an African-American alumni group, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1996.

Women's Studies: Combining Scholarship and Advocacy

  • The first Women's Studies courses at Hunter were offered in 1970.
  • The Women's Studies program--an interdisciplinary academic program that seeks to preserve, expand and share knowledge about women and gender--was founded in 1975 and offers a 24-credit undergraduate major.  Over 50 Hunter faculty members are affiliated with the program.  They come from a variety of disciplines and include four Distinguished Professors.  As one of the first Humanist-in-Residence sites in the country chosen by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Women's Studies program has hosted visiting international scholars from all over the world.

Womens Studies Focuses on Three Components

  • Scholarship:  The Women's Studies Collective-a group of Hunter professors-wrote the first multi-authored textbook in the field, entitled Women's Realities, Women's Choices: An Introduction to Women's Studies. (Oxford University Press, 1983; 2nd edition, 1995). Originally researched and written with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, it remains the only textbook in the field written collectively by many scholars.
  • Curriculum: Since 1983, the Women's Studies program has been engaged in re-examination and revision of the syllabi in all Hunter departments and professional  schools regarding issues of race, gender, class, ethnicity and diversity in light of modern and contemporary scholarship. This "curriculum transformation" has now become the model for the entire City University of New York (CUNY) system, embodied in an annual CUNY faculty development seminar on "Balancing the Curriculum for Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class."  Citing the seminar's "widespread impact and impressive progress integrating women's history and issues into the curriculum," the New York State division of the American Association of University Women bestowed on CUNY its 1997 "Progress in Equity" Award.  The Hunter professor who "co-facilitates" the curriculum transformation initiative is the third Hunter Women's Studies faculty member to be honored by the AAUW.
  • Advocacy: Women's Studies at Hunter is an academic program that requires its majors to fulfill a field-oriented research project or internship. One internship is with the Hunter College Center for the Study of Family Policy, founded by two Women's Studies members.  Through the Center's Welfare Rights Initiative, students assist in the leadership training that enables public-assistance recipients to act as their own advocates. Another internship offers students the opportunity to work in an organization committed to women's health and reproductive rights issues.

Women's Center:  An Asset for Hunter Students

  • At the Ellen Morse Tishman Women's Center, established in 1983, certified social workers and graduate interns provide confidential counseling and crisis intervention in such matters as sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, sexuality, and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues.  Of special concern to the Center are women returning to college in mid-life or mid-career.  Hunter sees these women as a critical resource and their education as a fundamental mission, and the Center provides counseling to meet the particular needs of these non-traditional students.

Conferences, Lectures, and Special Programs: A National and International Focus

  • From 1998 to 1999, funded by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, Hunter conducted an after-school program for 7th and 8th grade girls from public middle schools in Manhattan.  Called "Girlz II Women," the program involved instruction, activities, and mentoring aimed at enhancing self-esteem, increasing resiliency, and promoting a sense of belonging and efficacy among its participants.
  • Following Hunter's tradition of engagement with national and international issues, five women faculty members attended the non-governmental organization (NGO) conference related to the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in September 1995.
  • In 1995, against the backdrop of a civil war in Algeria that has been marked by systematic fundamentalist assassinations of secular women, an Algerian-born Hunter faculty member and author organized a symposium at Hunter, "Political Islam and Women in Algeria," that attracted international media coverage.
  • Hunter was a pioneer in establishing a college-wide Sexual Harassment Panel composed of faculty, staff and students that not only handles complaints but also engages in pro-active education and training for the entire academic community. In 1993, this panel received the Special Distinction Award from the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund. In addition, panel members have contributed to widely used publications on sexual harassment.
  • In 1992, shortly after the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Hunter hosted and co-sponsored "Women Tell the Truth," a conference on sexual harassment at which Professor Anita Hill was the keynote speaker.
  • Hunter sponsored the 4th Interdisciplinary International Congress on Women in 1990, a conference that brought together 1,800 women scholars and community activists from around the world to discuss women's issues.
  • In 1984, Hunter established the Bella Abzug Annual Lecture in Women's Studies in honor of the former U.S. Congresswoman, longtime political activist and Hunter alumna. Speakers in this series embody the power of women to transform cultural and world affairs, and have included journalist/activist Gloria Steinem; Dr. Johnnetta Cole; Maxine Hong Kingston; Catherine Stimpson; playwright Ntozake Shange; members of Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo; Dr. Mary Frances Berry of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission; and Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice.

Faculty and Administration: Hunter Women at Work

  • Besides having had three female presidents out of twelve (Mary L.  Gambrell, Jacqueline Grennan Wexler and Donna Shalala), Hunter has placed a high number of women in positions of leadership throughout the college. These include the provost and one-third of all department chairs.  As of fall '95, 52 percent of full-time faculty at Hunter were women compared to an 1993 national average of only 33 percent.
  • Hunter's women faculty include many who have achieved distinction in their fields for trailblazing scholarship, research and community outreach. To cite just three examples: Hunter boasts one of the world's leading classical historians of women; a 1995 winner of a MacArthur Fellowship-commonly called the "genius award"-who founded and directs the International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group, a research- and policy-centered organization to benefit low-income women of child-bearing age in the U.S. and developing countries; and an anthropologist who won a 1996 Fulbright grant for her research on how contact with the outside world affects the health of Amazonian Indians.

Women in Science at Hunter

  • The faculty includes a chemist who is a world expert on Mitomycin C, a drug used to treat breast cancer and other tumors; a neurobiologist who has published breakthrough findings on an antibody molecule that may be key to treating spinal-cord and brain injuries; and a biologist funded by the American Cancer Society for her pioneering research into a tumor-suppressor protein called p53.
  • Because Hunter is one of a small number of "Research Centers in Minority Institutions" designated by the National Institutes of Health, many women students have the opportunity to participate in this high-level research under faculty mentors, and have gone on to earn Ph.D. degrees in science.  For example:
    • Gillian Reynolds, a 1988 Hunter graduate, was the third African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Physics from M.I.T.
    • Maritza Tavarez, a 1996 BA-MA graduate in Physics,  was one of only 20 students nationwide to receive a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowship in astrophysics.

Distinguished Hunter Alumnae

  • Nobel laureates Gertrude Elion and Rosalyn Yalow.
  • From the performing arts: dancer/choreographer Pearl Primus; actress/activist Ruby Dee; opera stars Regina Resnik and Martina Arroyo.
  • Art gallery owner Mary Boone; photographer Arlene Alda.  From the world of letters and publishing: the late poet Audre Lorde; architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable; film critic Judith Crist; financial columnist Sylvia Porter; novelist Bel Kaufman, and journalist Naomi Bliven.
  • Evelyn Handler, past president of Brandeis University (who received her elementary, secondary and baccalaureate education at Hunter).
  • From the world of business entrepreneurs: Evelyn Lauder of the Estee Lauder Companies; Helen Kinney Copley, chair/CEO of Copley Press; Joan Helpern, president/CEO of Joan & David Shoes.
  • From public service: the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug; Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, first Hispanic named to the New York State Court of Appeals; Gertrude Landau, founder and director of the first senior center in the world; Margaret A. Dixon, former president of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)