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Vol. 3 No. 4

Perspectives

Spring 2003

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Female Faculty:
Women make their mark in pharmacy teaching

In 1922, UT Pharmacy Dean R.R.D. Cline offered a teaching position to Adelaide Richardson, the first such invitation made to a woman by a UT dean of pharmacy. She accepted the offer but resigned her position and moved to Missouri to marry before ever entering the classroom.
Thus began the history of female faculty members within the UT pharmacy program.

Fortunately, Dean Cline was not deterred by the quick departure of Richardson and turned to Irma Smith, a 1919 graduate of the College, to fill the faculty vacancy. Smith accepted and became the first woman to teach within the pharmacy program.

Smith’s assignment was to conduct the pharmacy laboratory for junior students, to teach a course on medicinal plants, and to develop the medicinal herb garden. She was rewarded for her efforts in 1926 with promotion to the position of adjunct professor, becoming the first woman to be named to a tenure track position in the College and one of the first female professors of pharmacy in the nation.

In the 1920s, several women joined Smith on the college faculty. Many of these women served relatively brief periods.
One female faculty member consistently is photographed in class scrapbooks from the 1940s. Dr. Marie Morrow was a faculty member within the Departments of Botany and Bacteriology and as such taught pharmacy students for many years.

Faced in 1947 with faculty teaching openings and a shortage of Ph.D. candidates, Pharmacy Dean Henry Burlage decided to hire instructors with little or no graduate training but who wished to pursue further studies. Among those hired was Esther Jane Wood Hall.

Dr. Hall was the first woman to graduate in pharmacy from Howard College in Birmingham. She accepted the invitition to come to Austin with plans to pursue her own graduate education. In 1957, she was awarded a Ph.D. in pharmacy administration and became the first to receive the degree from the UT College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Hall was promoted to associate professor of pharmacy administration in 1961 but it was not until 1975 that she was named as a full professor.

In the 1980s, prospects for women in pharmacy academia began to improve. In 1981, Joanne Richards joined the College as a postdoctoral fellow. Soon she took over teaching responsbilities for the physiology course and in 1985, she joined the Dean’s staff. As a senior lecturer in pharmacology, she was, in 1987-88, the first woman pharmacy faculty member to be named a recipient of the Texas Excellence Teaching Award. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she currently serves as assistant dean and director of admissions. In this capacity, she is one of 30 female assistant deans of pharmacy in the nation. Two others, Jennifer Myhra and Angela Solis, also work within the College.

The second woman to receive the pharmacy teaching excellence award was Karen Rascati who joined the College in 1986 and received the honor in 1992-93. With the August 31 departure of Serrine Lau in the Division of Pharmacology/Toxicology, Dr. Rascati becomes the senior ranking female faculty member and the only woman to currently hold the title of full professor within the College. Joining Dr. Rascati on the tenure track are Jamie Barner, Tawny Bettinger, Carolyn Brown, Maria Croyle, Christine Duvauchelle, and Andrea Gore. In addition, there are approximately 30 women on the non-tenure track faculty.

Dr. Rascati said her first introduction to pharmacy as a profession came when she was 16-years-old and secured her first job -- a waitress at the soda counter at her neighborhood pharmacy. By the time she graduated from high school, she decided to pursue a pharmacy career.
She practiced in both retail and hospital pharmacy and returned to graduate school on a part-time basis while working full-time. After her husband completed his education in Pharmacy and their first child was born, she began work on her Ph.D on a full-time basis. . Although the ratio then of women:men in pharmacy graduate school was approximately 1:2, she still found mentors and a support group.

“My major professor was a woman who is still on faculty,” she said, “and one of my friends through graduate school is now an associate dean, so I had female mentors and colleagues. Still, there are only about 10 full professors in pharmacy administration today who are female.”
In 1988, she became pregnant with her second child while pursuing tenure at UT Austin.

“There was no written provision concerning maternity leave for women faculty members working under the six-year tenure process,” Dr. Rascati recalled. “I went to (then) Dean Doluisio, explained my situation and asked about the College’s policy. He told me to work it out within my division”

“While that process worked for me and my family, others on campus did not have as much support from their administration. Fortunately, today, we have the Family and Medical Leave Act which makes provisions for time away from work for the birth of a child or other family need situations, including an extension of the tenure track probationary period, if needed, but that did not happen until the early 1990s,” she said.

“Although there is still progress to be made, circumstances are much more supportive for women in academics today,” she said.