Famous Quotes | [President Ellen Wood Hall is]...
[President Ellen Wood Hall is] short, with short gray hair that is not in the least bit attractive, and wears godawful clothes.
- Peggy Hite Self
Attribution: Peggy Hite Self (b. c. 1921), U.S. college alumna. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A17 (December 16, 1992). A 1943 alumna of all-women Converse College (Spartanburg, S.C.), Self was criticizing the college’s first woman president. She and another alumna, Harriet B. Wilder, complained to the college’s governing board and declared that they would discontinue their $100 annual donations. Among the other criticisms made by President Hall’s opponents were her hiring of an African American dean of students and the informal meeting of a college counselor with a group of lesbian students. Sally H. Coughman, president of the Alumnae Association, said: “She [Hall] is not the white-glove Southern lady that I think many, many of the older alums see themselves as and see Converse girls as being—which is absolutely not who those students are anymore.” Katherine F. Reeves, chair of the Board of Trustees, lamented: “To have this happen at a women’s college is really depressing.” And President Hall observed: “Couched in all this is the idea that one isn’t as feminine as one should be, and I think that’s a way of trying to keep women from being as independent as they need to be to function in leadership positions.” Soon after saying this, she resigned.
Categories: Academia, College Alumna, Criticism Of Women, South (American)
