In early January 2019 Katherine A. Rowe was inaugurated as the First Woman President of the college of William and Mary, three and one-quarter centuries after it was founded. I began to wonder what took so long, especially for a college named after a woman. Then I began to research a bit and realized that Mary, of William and Mary, was queen in her own right, and helped to rule. A college named after a powerful woman had only now thought to have a woman at its helm. Granted for the first two and one-quarter centuries, the institution was all male, but it has been co-ed since 1918. What took so long? And what kind of woman was able to break this academic ceiling?
First, a little history. In the mid 1600’s Charles II ruled England. He had no descendants who could succeed him so his brother, James II of England and Ireland (also James VII of Scotland) assumed the throne. He had no sons to succeed him, so his daughter Mary took the throne. Mary was married to William of Orange and the two of them ascended to the throne. Mary was named “queen regnant,” meaning she ruled in her own right. She was not a “queen regent,” standing in for her son until he was of age, or a “queen consort,” solely in power because she was married to the king. She was queen through her own birthright and equal ruler with her spouse.
They say Mary deferred to her husband as ruler, but we know that history likes to obliterate the contributions of women so that may or may not be true. We do know that William was often in battle and Mary ruled alone when he was gone, so she certainly knew how to rule.
A year before Mary died, in 1693, the colonists founded a college in Williamsburg, Virginia and it was chartered by the monarchs. The College of William and Mary is the second-oldest educational institution in the United States, and has operated continuously, with the exception of during the Civil War years. George Washington earned his surveying credentials here and Presidents Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler, and James Monroe studied here as well.
For the first century William and Mary’s presidents were clergymen, and after that they were men, men, and more men. It was not until July, 2018 that this college, named after a queen regnant, hired a woman to head the institution. And Katherine A. Rowe is an exceptional woman. She is a scholar, an academic, an administrator, an entrepreneur, and an athlete. She has made strides in design thinking and digital humanities.
Rowe’s bachelor’s degree is in English and American literature, earned at Carleton College. That degree was followed by a Master’s and Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard. She also did graduate work in Cinema and Media Studies at New York University.
As a scholar, Rowe has published books about Shakespeare and is president of the Shakespeare Association of America. She has also been active in the International Shakespeare Association as well as the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the American Council of Learned Societies. An academic, she was an assistant professor of English at Yale and spent 16 years at Bryn Mawr College as an English professor and department chair.
As an academic administrator, she was director of the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center for leadership and public engagement at Bryn Mawr. Then she was provost and dean of faculty at Smith College before assuming the position at William and Mary.
As an entrepreneur she is co-founder and former CEO of Luminary Digital Media. Rowe also directed the Digital Humanities Initiative at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges.
Rowe is a holistic thinker and a holistic person. To round out her life, she is a champion and coach of Ultimate Frisbee. She has led teams to state championships and co-founded the nonprofit Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance.
Like Queen Mary, she is a woman qualified to lead in her own right. I wonder if Queen Mary has been turning over in her grave for centuries, and only now can rest a bit more easily.
