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Campus Life

Early Days

1891

Mrs. John T. Caine becomes the first matron of UAC.

1898

Sorosis is founded as a literary society and is later chartered by the state of Utah as the first social sorority on campus.

1912

Sigma Theta Phi is the first Greek letter society on campus.

1922

Charlotte Dancy

Associated Women Students (AWS) is founded by Dean Charlotte Dancy (founded as Women's Student Association).

Women's Athletic Association (WAA) is founded.

1924

AWS implements a Big Sister program, with senior girls "adopting" freshman girls.

1928

William Walthers is a lone male in the Home Economics Club.

1937

The residence hall for women is constructed.

1939

Miss Kearl

Miss Kearl is the first woman in the Civil Engineer Club.

Cadet Major Bliss Mayer has a regular position in the U. S. Army.

Women's Athletic Association (WAA) sponsors volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball, badminton, archery, swimming, and tennis.

Associated Women Students (AWS) strives to maintain collegiate attitudes among the coeds, including sponsoring "wallflower-removing" dances.

Fifteen women (and no men) comprise the English Club, which boasts of having five Phi Kappa Phi's as members.

40's and 50's

1942

Women participate in National Defense training courses: radio, electric welding, and motorized equipment repair.

Caroline Hendricks, Dean of Women, announces that women can enroll in two six-month courses and then work to aid in war effort.

Woman are encouraged by the Dean not to wear red sweaters lest the military men get "emotionally excited," comments laughingly referred to as the "EE" lecture.

1944

Women are pictured wearing pants in the Buzzer.

1945

Dan Ludlow

Junior Class Officer

The 1945 yearbook The Buzzer is dedicated to Woman Power and "the girls you left behind who have done their best to protect our alma mater that you fighting heroes may return to find it unchanged." The Buzzer continues, "No men...so women stepped into the clodhopper shoes vacated by the men and with a little adjusting, tightened the shoelaces to prove that the shoes were a good fit."

One lone male, Dan Ludlow, is the Student Body President, with eight women comprising the remaining Student Council. The Buzzer claims "Dan directed his Council harem with a man's intuition."

Men hold the top spot of class president of the senior, sophomore, and freshman class, but a woman, Afton Hall, is president of the junior class.

Ruth Hopewell is the only woman member of the Engineering Club.

1946

The 1946 Buzzer is dedicated to "returned Aggies...You may now take back your jobs so ably filled in your absence by women, who are not willing to be just college coeds again."

Eleanor Baile and Nancy Jane Musselman are members of the previously all-male Ag Club. The Engineering Club is back to strictly men.

1948

Pi Sigma Alpha, political science honorary, boasts one woman, Joan Tingey. Nancy Jane Musselman still smiles in the Buzzer's picture of the Ag Club. Geology, Landscape Architecture, Industrial Arts, and Foresters Clubs are still all male.

Dames Club is established for the wives of married Aggies.

1949

Ione Bennion Helping Students

Dean of Women Ione Bennion is the first to organize a conference to help women students understand career possibilities and be introduced to women's groups throughout the state.

1950

Queens reign supreme during the next two decades: Dream Girl of Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Nu Girl, Sigma Phi Epsilon Queen of Hearts, Star of Kappa Sigma, Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen, Openhouse Queen, and Snow Queen, to name just a few. The Buzzer notes, "Although the school boasts hundreds of pretty girls, those who reign as queen of the campus are really the cream of the crop."

Beatrice Bingham is the only woman in the Institute of Radio Engineers and one of two women in Psi Chi, the national psychology fraternity.

1951

Corrine Clawson is in the previously all-male Geology Club.

1953

Women are in the Mechanical Society. Still, only women in the Secretarial Club.

Two women are active in the American Chemical Society, Noola Van Orden and Ann Nelson.

1956

The Aggiettes, an all-female drill team, is formed.

Two women are active in the Chemical Club.

1958

Judy Tuttle is an officer in the Vet Science Club.

Margaret Preston is active as an officer in the Landscape Architecture Club.

1959

Women are still not allowed to wear slacks in class.

To be charming was the desire of each girl as she met Associated Women Students (AWS) officers and university officials at the Associated Women's Tea.

60's and 70's

1960

Mother's Day Weekend is instigated, with teas, tours, a fashion show, and entertainment.

The weekly meeting of the Home Economics Club features, "Ideal Woman and What I Expect in a Homemaker" at a panel discussion by seven male Aggies - one from each of USU's seven colleges.

The Independent Student Council is formed to encourage more "independent" student activity on campus to counter the monopoly Greeks hold on student offices.

1962

The Dean's Council and Student Senate propose a campaign for improving dress on campus. The campaign stresses the importance of cleanliness and to request the support of each Aggie in cleaning up the lackness in dress on campus.

1963

Association of Women Students seeks "Big Sisters for new freshman girls.

1964

Enid Ritchie

First Association of Women Students (AWS) week is held, featuring teas, lectures, fashion, and the Preference Dance.

Over 700 mothers attend Mothers' Weekend.

Three women smile from the Forestry Club picture in The Buzzer, but alas, they are the Forestry Queen and her attendants!

Enid Ritchie is the only woman in the Animal Husbandry Club, and she serves as the president.

1967

"Preferred Man" finalists compete in a cake decorating contest during Women's Week.

1968

Senior coeds speak to high school students about their majors.

USU male students and cooperating coeds take part in a panty-raid to relieve the tensions from mid-term exams. It is noted in an AP article in the campus paper that only Aggie Tech could still produce a panty-raid rather than a protest demonstration.

1969

Women's issues, such as rape and pre-marital sex, are addressed on campus.

With the exception of the LDS Living Center, curfews on women dorms have been suspended.

1971

Women on campus rally for ERA. Bella Abzug speaks on political issues.

AWS sponsors Sex Week with topics on premarital attitudes, venereal disease, abortion, sterilization, homosexuality and problems of mating and marriage.

1972

A debate on population control and "the pill" erupts into 2 hours of screaming and name calling.

1973

A woman earns 58 cents for every dollar a man earns.

1974

Helen Lundstrom

Renee Watson, is the first woman welding student.

Dean Helen Lundstrom contends that during the last eight years, the role of Dean of Women has changed to helping women reach their full potential, rather than serving as a substitute for parental guidance.

According to the school paper, "There is an attractive, young, and very female new addition to the University Center barber shop."

1975

Shirley Chisholm

Estelle Ramey

A new group - Women in Science and Engineering is formed.

Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) and Dr. Estelle Ramey, scientist, writer and women's rights advocate speak on campus.

1976

Women students voice complaints of male-dominated faculties, limited encouragement to succeed in traditional male departments, and the conservative attitudes some professors exhibit toward women students.

1977

Lighting on the USU campus is a major concern to women students.

1979

Equal Rights Amendment proponent, Karen DeCrow, and ERA opponent, Phyllis Schalafly, debate during an ASUSU Convocations. A year earlier, there was not a single female Convocation speaker, or for that matter any women speakers, at USU.

80's and 90's

1980

Blue Key Club, formerly an all-male service honorary, admits first woman for membership, Jenny Falk.

Actress Cicely Tyson draws mixed response from crowd - some were angry she arrived late and some didn't like the way she was dressed.

Margaret Rhea Seddon, NASA astronant candidate speaks at Mother's Weekend.

Coed housing on campus is advocated.

1981

Mary Cleave

Women's Week features USU alumnae, Mary Cleave, astronaut.

1982

Joan Mondale

Joan Mondale, wife of former Vice President, Walter F. Mondale, promotes arts in America during the Hands Across the Valley conference.

1983

Maya Angelou gives renditions of black poety and song at Convocations, and Mrs. Ina Thorsson, Under-Secretary of State for Disarmament Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden, speaks on peace and national security.

1985

Kitty Tucker, crusading lawyer for the Karen Silkwood plutonium contamination case, speaks at USU.

1987

Maki Mandela provides an eye witness account of oppression and apartheid in South Africa during her talk, "Tears and Fears."

1988

Sarah Weddington

Michelle Henrie is elected as the first woman Student Body President.

Attorney Sarah Weddington, who defended "Jane Roe" in the Roe v Wade landmark Supreme Court Case speaks on campus.

1990

Elouise Bell

An effort is under way to push for campus child care.

Utah's Elouise Bell, noted author, BYU professor, and columnist for Network magazine talks about humor and holds a book signing for her new book, "Only When I Laugh."

The first Take Back the Night march is held on campus to create awareness of sexual assault. This tradition lasts nine years.

1994

A report on the Region VIII Summit on Women's Concerns, a precursor to the 4th World Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) is given by June Welling, President, Logan Business College and AAUW member.

1996

Peggy Stock

Peggy Stock, 15th President of Westminster College and Utah's first female college president, speaks at a luncheon at USU.

1997

Shelly Anderson serves as Student Body President; the second woman in USU History.

Katie Koestner, outspoken date rape survivor and sexual assault prevention advocate, speaks to students.

Michael Kimmel, pro-feminist sociologist and author, SUNY at Stony Brook, is a Convocation's speaker.

1998

Utah Starzz head coach, Denise Taylor, gives a basketball clinic and is the featured speaker during Black History month.

Winona LaDuke, activist, comes to USU during Native American Week andMargaret Wheatley, management expert and author of "Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe" are featured speakers on campus.

1999

Sandra Steingraber

Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, cancer survivor, and author of "Living Downstream" speaks on evidence linking cancer to environmental contamination.

A New Century

2000

The multicultural sorority, Theta Nu Xi, is established to promote leadership, understanding, and self improvement through academic excellence and involvement in and service to campus and community as well as being living examples of sisterhood across different races, cultures, religions, backgrounds, and lifestyles.

2001

Sappho is recognized as a USU student organization. It is founded to meet the social needs of lesbian and bisexual women at USU and in the surrounding community of Cache Valley.

2002

Celestial Bybee is elected as the third woman ASUSU Student Body President.

2003

Women's Basketball returns to Utah State for the first time in nearly 16 years. Team play begins in the 2003-04 season.

2004

As part of National Women's History Month, Utah's first woman governor, Olene Walker speaks to student and community members about being a woman in office and issues facing Utah.

2005

Dr. Virginia Valian, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), is the keynote speaker at the USU Diversity Awards. Valian is a noted gender and career development expert.

2006

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes - 90 men wear high heels and walk a mile-long course around campus to raise awareness for and take a stand against sexual assault and violence against women. Organized by SAAVI, the Sexual Assault and Anti-Violence Information office.