Spring 2016

http://amita.alumclub.mit.edu

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AMITA Executive Board (2015­ CORRECTION: 2016) President Dorothy Curtis '73 The URL to RSVP for the AMITA Annual Meeting Vice President is Deborah Poodry MAA '79, MCP '79

http://amita.alumclub.mit.edu/annual_meeting_2016 Membership Chair Veena Jayadeva MBA '10

Treasurer Anh Thu Vo '89

President's Letter Recording Secretary Deborah Poodry MAA '79, MCP '79

Dear MIT Alumna, Program Chair, New England Sonya Huang '05, PhD '13 I hope your spring is going well! Archivist I would like to introduce our new Newsletter Editor, Carol Hooker '67 Rachel Learned, '97. With this newsletter, she is introducing a few new features of our website: First, there is a Citizen Scientist corner, where we Newsletter Chair will honor the contributions of AMITA members and alumnae to our Rachel Learned '97

community and the world. Second we are starting an "Ask AMITA" column. Student Award Committee Chair Your contributions and questions are welcome! In an upcoming newsletter, Uttara Marti '03, MNG '05 we will announce a web based collection of tips, clues and hints for working in male­dominated fields. Nominating Committee Susan Kannenberg '61, Chair If you will be in the Boston/Cambridge area on Saturday, June 4th, I Irene Chan '78 encourage you to attend the AMITA Annual Meeting. More details are Aileen Wu '03 below.

______Also in this newsletter, there is an item proposing that we honor Katharine Negotiating Conditions for Your Dexter McCormick 1904 as part of the upcoming MIT fund­raising Success campaign. On Wednesday, Best wishes for the summer! March 30, 2016 Deborah Kolb '81 Dorothy Curtis '73 spoke about AMITA strategies for workplace ______negotiations, for getting resources to do our job, for Honoring Katharine Dexter McCormick getting credit and value for our work, for opportunities and the roles we want and for schedules that work with our lives. To follow up on this topic, please see Professor Kolb's book, "Negotiating At Work: Turn Small Wins Into Big Gains." This event was sponsored by Goodwin Procter, LLC.

MIT May 7 Moving Day!

MIT's move from Boston to Cambridge in 1916 was marked by the ceremonial crossing in which the elaborate Bucentaur barge (below) transported the Institute charter across the Charles to MIT’s new Katharine Dexter McCormick (KDM) graduated from MIT with an home. Current festivities are planned SB in Biology in 1904. Sixty years later, when she spoke at the to celebrate the 100 year opening of McCormick Hall she cited MIT for its "advanced policy anniversary. of scientific education for women... gave me the opportunity to obtain the scientific training which has been of inestimable value ... throughout my life." When she died in 1967, KDM bequeathed the majority of her considerable fortune to MIT; until 2000, it was the largest gift in MIT’s history. But MIT has never honored KDM by name – to this day, there is no space or program named for her! [1]

MIT will be announcing a major fundraising campaign in May 2016. AMITA proposes that this is an excellent opportunity to honor KDM as we approach the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States – KDM was the vice­president of the National Women's Suffrage Association and in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified, became the founding vice president of the League of Women Voters. Read more in the Flash Back to 1916 There are a number of ways that KDM's achievements can be recognized – an endowed chair, a fellowship fund, and others. If AMITA is celebrating this flash back you have any suggestions as to what would be an appropriate to 1916 by featuring two interviews of way to honor her and publicize her outstanding accomplishments, alumnae from this era. The first is of please send them via Contact Us or to AMITA Feedback. Marjorie Pierce For more information on KDM and her outstanding contributions to women at MIT and around the world, see the sites below, or perform your own search.

MIT Library Archives KDM Exhibit PBS Documentary on the Pill Katharine McCormick in Wikipedia

[1] The dorm is “Stanley McCormick Hall”, which is written in foot­ high letters over the front desk. Katharine Dexter McCormick endowed Stanley McCormick Hall in honor of her husband. who says “My family wanted me to go to Wellesley, but I felt that if I went to Wellesley the only job I could get would probably be waiting on tables or something like that…”

The other is of Martha Eiseman Munzer

Upcoming AMITA Events

AMITA Annual Meeting ­ Saturday, June 4th, at the Student Center: Please join us for our annual meeting. Networking will begin at 2pm, followed by a brief annual meeting, with a review of who was supposed to enter Smith this last year and the election of next year's officers. Our College, but she applied to MIT distinguished speaker will be Chris Bourg, the recently appointed “because of a "crush" on a teacher.” Director of the MIT Libraries. She will speak about her own vision She was told by the dean of and on the work of the Future of Libraries task force Please MIT "Young lady, this is no place for you." So I said, "Well, if I pass the register at this link. exams will you take me?" And he sighed, and I hope he smiled as he Retirement Savings Vehicles ­ On Wednesday, May 11, AMITA said, "We'll have to." And that's how will host a presentation about retirement savings vehicles, a I got to M.I.T. financial planning seminar for women of all generations. AMITA has collected many If you are interested in helping with these events or need more fascinating alumnae stories. Read information, please contact Sonya Huang '05. more of the digitized Margaret

______MacVicar Memorial AMITA Oral History Project interviews in the MIT Dome. New Citizen Science Corner

Our Newsletter Editor writes: You can do more than you think! You can make a positive impact on things that can help society, your town, your children’s safety, health, for instance. Volunteers Needed! MIT Alumnae are uniquely advantaged in our ability to consume Fluent in social media? Volunteer(s) scientifically­based recommendations and policies to help make a are needed to post events and news positive impact at every level, from your immediate circle of on AMITA's Twitter feed and friends, to your child’s school, to where you work, to your local Facebook page. If you are and state government. Moreover, our experience in consuming, interested, please contact Dorothy understanding, and translating scientifically­based information is Curtis '73. often positively received by our peers in society (like the other parents who also want seat belts on the school buses.) Are you interested in oral history? Do you know of an alumna that Come check out our new Citizen Scientist web page for stories of should be interviewed. Do you want other alumnae who successfully played the role of citizen scientist to be interviewed? Contact Carol on a topic that might also peak your interest. Get tips on how to Hooker '67 if you want to help on go about making a difference on something you care about and AMITA's Oral History Project. want to help change. Add your own story and resources (by emailing it to AMITA Feedback). Volunteers make our club fun, interesting and exciting! Come to our Please see our first topic: Do you think school buses should have events and suggest some that you seat belts? [Visit site] think would be of interest! We welcome your help in getting our ______events together. Please contact any of our board members.

Belmont­Paul Women’s Equality National Monument Established News to share?

Do you have any news that you think other AMITA members would be interested in? Please email them to AMITA Feedback.

Join or Renew your Membership!

Memberships now expire on the date you joined AMITA instead of June 30th. Please visit our membership form page for more information.

______I stand on the shoulders of the women before me.

On April 12, 2016, Equal Pay Day, the Sewall­Belmont House in Washington, D.C., was proclaimed the Belmont­Paul Women's Equality National Monument. "I want young girls and boys to come here — 10, 20, 100 years from now — to know that women fought for equality; it was not just given to them," said Obama in a speech at the dedication of the monument. "I want them to come here and be astonished that there was ever a time that women could not vote. I want them to be astonished that there was ever a time when women earned less than men for doing the same work." See also [PBS NewHour article].

Like Alva Belmont and Alice Paul, MIT alumnae have been active in the women's rights movement from the earliest days.

Read about alumna Florence Luscomb 1904, “A Radical Foremother” who was one of the first women to graduate from M.I.T. with a degree in architecture. She spent many Saturday mornings in the 1910s selling the suffrage paper, The Woman’s Journal, outside the Park Street Station. [Harvard Square Library biography]

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