Catharine R. Stimpson's closing remarks at BCRW 20th anniversary dinner, 1993, page 2

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like. It was due for a long consciousness—raising session with
Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. The City of Ladies had lost the
militancy of Minerva and the poetry of Sappho. In brief, The City
of Ladies had to do more for women.

An assistant.professor of English, with.dark.and tousled hair,
I was one of the restless. So were many of the people at this
party. Not all of us, of course, had dark and tousled hair. The
president of the City of Ladies on the Heights, Dr. Martha E.
Peterson, took note of the clamorings and.appointed a Task Force on
Barnard and the Educated Woman. Its seventeen members included
trustees, faculty, students, alumnae, and administrators. I‘was the
"Chairman," yes, the "Chairman." In April, 1971, we issued our
report. Christine de Pisan would, I believe, have guffawed at the
prose, but Christine would also, I believe, have been a Task Force
member. "Our most general suggestion," the Task Force stated primly
and firmly, "is that Barnard create and support a Women's Center
with research library, competent director, adequate staff, and
close connections to the college and to the life of
undergraduates."

In May, 1971, President Peterson accepted this suggestion. She
selected an Executive Committee and a part-time Acting Director,
that tousled assistant professor of English. I served for a year.
Jane Gould, who gave the Center its identity, began her invaluable
tenure in 1972. Temma Kaplan, who urged us to see the differences
among women and to work against the differences that harm us all,

followed Jane. Now Leslie J. Calman, whom I remember as a guitar-