magazine - Somerville College - University of Oxford
magazine - Somerville College - University of Oxford
magazine - Somerville College - University of Oxford
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
22 | <strong>Somerville</strong> Magzine<br />
From <strong>Somerville</strong><br />
to Columbia<br />
Through the glass ceiling<br />
TONI COFFEE<br />
Michele Moody-Adams, new Dean <strong>of</strong><br />
Columbia <strong>College</strong> and old member <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Somerville</strong>, is a role model for women,<br />
ethnic minorities… and philosophers.<br />
If you thought you heard a tinkling sound in the<br />
distance last summer, it was probably caused by the<br />
shattering <strong>of</strong> yet another glass ceiling when Michele<br />
Moody-Adams (Moody, PPE, 1978) became the Dean<br />
<strong>of</strong> Columbia <strong>College</strong>, the primary undergraduate<br />
division <strong>of</strong> Columbia <strong>University</strong> in New York. Founded<br />
in 1754, the college is one <strong>of</strong> the oldest in the US and<br />
it has been fully co-educational since 1983 but this<br />
is the fi rst time it has been headed by a woman, and<br />
by an African American. She is also the fi rst holder<br />
<strong>of</strong> a new title in the university administration, as Vice<br />
President for Undergraduate Education.<br />
Michele Moody-Adams is a scholar, a teacher, and an<br />
administrator and her experience in all <strong>of</strong> these areas<br />
will be crucial in her new position. She grew up in<br />
Chicago at a time when racial, economic, and gender<br />
barriers could easily have limited her aspirations as well<br />
as her achievements but her parents, both educators in<br />
the Chicago public schools, taught her that she could do<br />
“anything I put my mind to” and she has set high goals<br />
for herself from the start.<br />
She came to <strong>Oxford</strong> as a Marshall scholar after<br />
completing a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Wellesley<br />
<strong>College</strong>, then as now one <strong>of</strong> the leading women’s colleges<br />
in the US. She chose <strong>Somerville</strong>, she says, because she<br />
had had a wonderful experience in a single-sex institution<br />
at Wellesley and was curious to see what it would be like<br />
in the British context. She was not disappointed. She<br />
particularly enjoyed the intellectual independence that<br />
was encouraged by the tutorial system, and in PPE she<br />
gained a different perspective on her subject.<br />
Our students need to understand that<br />
the world can look very different when<br />
not filtered through an American lens.<br />
Photograph by Eileen Barroso