Author & Scholar to Speak at Coffin School
Best known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoirs, Jill Ker Conway, Smith College’s first woman president, and acclaimed bestselling author will speak at the Coffin School on Thursday, August 9 at 5:30 p.m.
Her lecture on “Stories of Scientists Who Are Women” will examine the similarities of the early lives of women and men who chose to become scientists. Along the way, she will comment on the differences in career paths for women and men caused by gender stereotyping during Maria Mitchell’s era. This lecture, presented by the Egan Maritime Foundation, fits well with their 2007 special exhibition “Gutsy Gals: from Hearth to Heavens, Maria Mitchell and Her Sister Nantucketers.”
Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales in the outback of Australia. She was raised with her two brothers in isolation on tens of thousands of acres owned by her family called Coorain (an aboriginal word for "windy place"). On Coorain she was schooled entirely by her mother and a governess.
Conway spent much of her youth working the farm, helping with such activities as herding and tending the sheep and checking the perimeter fences. The farm prospered until a long drought. When she was 11, her father drowned in a diving accident, while trying to extend the farm's water piping. After three more years of drought Conway’s mother was compelled to move the family off Coorain to Sydney.
When her mother enrolled her at Abbotsleigh, a private girls school, Conway found intellectual challenge and social acceptance. After Abbotsleigh, she enrolled at the University of Sydney where she studied History and English and graduated with honours in 1958. Upon graduation, Conway sought a trainee post in the Department of External Affairs, but the conservative all-male committee was intimidated by her and she was refused for being, as she learned later, "too good looking" and "too intellectually aggressive."
Instead, she travelled through Europe. In 1960 she decided to strike out on her own and move to the United States. At age 25, she was accepted into the Harvard University history program. There she assisted a Canadian professor, John Conway, who became her husband until his death in 1995. Conway received her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1969 and taught at the University of Toronto from 1964 to 1975.
In 1975, she became the first woman president of Smith College in Massachusetts and served ten years in that post. Since 1985, she has been a Visiting Scholar and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds thirty-eight honorary degrees from North American and Australian colleges and universities.
Conway is a director of many major American corporations, including Merrill Lynch & Co., Nike, Inc., and Colgate-Palmolive Co. Her success and personal definition are shaped by her childhood experiences and are detailed in her autobiography, The Road from Coorain. She currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
This special event is being Trianon Seaman Schepps, Nantucket Vineyards & Nantucket Airlines. Benefactor tickets are available for $250; Patron tickets for $150; Friend Tickets for $75; and Student tickets at $35 (with student ID). To purchase tickets, call the Egan Maritime Foundation at 508-228-2505.
