Katherine Carmichael's contributions to gender equity
O'Connor explains the role that Katherine Carmichael played in organizing the various women's organizations that became influential in the equalization of gender-related issues around UNC's campus.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Margaret Anne O'Connor, July 1, 1987. Interview L-0031. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
Now about this time, or maybe a little bit later, Katherine Carmichael
and the Women's Forum started, at least informally,
collecting and disseminating information on courses being taught that
focused on women.
MARGARET ANNE O'CONNOR:
Yes, and I think, probably, I wound up typing up most of those as well as
gathering up the material myself. Katherine's office was a
clearing house, essentially, in the first five years I was at the
University for interest in the growing number of women's
courses, particularly in the history department and in the foreign
languages and also for faculty women. It was before there was any
women's organization. It was a group that was composed of
students, faculty, and staff. So it was a very unusual combination, and
it was an exciting time. I think that might have been one of the most
rewarding activities that Katherine Carmichael was involved in perhaps
the last five years that she was at the University.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
At this time she wasn't Dean of Women anymore. She was
Assistant Dean
MARGARET ANNE O'CONNOR:
I believe she was Assistant Dean of Students. I would have to check on
her title.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
It was something like that.
MARGARET ANNE O'CONNOR:
The staff had grown so much that her responsibilities and duties had
diminished quite a bit so that she had more time to take on these other
roles. And I really do think that she became a focal point for an
activism among the undergraduate students that was apparent, certainly,
in the Association for Women Students and eventually became part of
University Women for Affirmative Action in about 1975-1976, and also for
the Association for Women Faculty that emerged from that group about two
years after the University UWAA officially disbanded. I
guess there was no one there to disband them, so maybe they
still exist somewhere in an abstract sense.