The fall of 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the first women to enroll as undergraduates at Stevens. Beginning in the 1940s, bold women such as Beatrice Hicks and Audrey Leef earned graduate degrees and ventured into industries where women had not gone before. In 1971, in the first co-ed undergraduate class at Stevens, an intrepid band of trailblazing women stepped onto campus and established a presence.
Over fifty years, that presence has grown into power. Today, women fill leadership roles in the student body, within the faculty, and in administrative offices across campus, including half the presidential cabinet.
The women who stepped onto campus decades ago faced a unique situation. They paved a way for future generations, now each taking their own steps, so that before another fifty years, what started as a few can bloom to a representative fifty percent and a presence that is full, permanent, and enduringly powerful.