Interview, Trenton Times, Nov. 2, 1978
"As to the need for a single-sex college, Jill Conway is even more
adament. 'A college free of sexual stereotyping is essential.' The
greatest difference between a Princeton and a Smith education is in the
learning of leadership skills, she believes. It has been noted that at
coed colleges the tendency of women is to hide their talents, to fail to
develop a critical intelligence, to defer to men in the classroom and
lab, a general reluctance to pull out all the intellectual stops.
'Historically,' she points out 'the single-sex colleges have produced
more women scientists than their coed counterparts--in fact, three
times the number of scientists and mathematicians.'"
Jill Ker Conway, President Emerita
Speech, Smith College, Rally Day, Feb. 2, 1995
"Every member of the faculty who is here is here to bring to its fullest
and most powerful expression the intellectual, artistic and political
and social talents of the student body--and to do that not by fretting
about whether they approximate the current societal norm for what's
female, but to do it through training their minds. That's something that
the larger society has difficulty committing to in terms that mean
anything a woman wants to do. It's happy to train them in some things,
but not in everything. But the mission of this institution has been to
find the resources to recruit the faculty intellects, to build the
buildings, to maintain the grounds, so that women could learn whatever
they wanted here. And that mission is a glorious one, and one that's
been carried out with extraordinary success for a hundred and twenty
years."
