January 5, 2006
Dress code days end, thanks to assistant dean
Last summer, University Week sent out e-mail to all the faculty and staff we could find who have worked here for at least 35 years. We received a variety of reminiscences, which we will begin printing starting this quarter. Today, Carol Rush, now an assistant for finance and administration in the Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office, looks back on a different time for women.
“I began working here in August of 1968 as a staff member in the Graduate School. Joe McCarthy was dean at the time — and in 1969 he hired Thelma Kennedy, associate professor of physiology and biophysics, to be one of the assistant deans in the Graduate School. I was fortunate enough to serve as her assistant during her tenure in that position. Temy was an exceptional person and so interested in equality for women. She was one of a very few women in administration at that time.
“One of my strongest memories of her has to do with the UW dress code for women. At that time we were required to wear dresses, skirts, suits — no pants of any type. On a Friday afternoon she went to into Dean McCarthy’s office and suggested that because current styles included very tasteful slacks and pant suits she thought it would be appropriate to allow the women in our office that option. (She assured him no one would show up to work in jeans.) His response was “Absolutely not — the president dictates the dress code on this campus.”
“The following Monday morning, Temy and the dean’s special assistant, Henrietta Wilson, both arrived in very tasteful pantsuits. By that Friday there was a letter from the President’s Office modifying the dress code for women.”
