Home to William & Mary's Department of Theatre and Speech, Phi Beta Kappa Hall has played host to many notable female alumna and incredible performances.
Glenn Close '74 honed her acting skills at Phi Beta Kappa Hall. Close performed in several productions with the Department of Theatre, Speech, and Dance, including "Twelfth Night" and "Anything Goes". Close, a Theatre and Anthropology major, said, “A liberal arts education keeps you curious, it keeps you interesting.” Known for her performances in "101 Dalmations" and "Fatal Attraction", Close has three Emmy awards, three Tony awards, a Golden Globe, and six Oscar nominations.
Linda Lavin '59 is best known today for her lead role in the long running TV sitcom “Alice". As a student, Lavin starred in "Romeo and Juliet," "As You Like It" and many more productions. She was also a member of William & Mary's chapter of Theta Alpha Pi, national honor society that recognizes high achievement in theatre study and production. Upon her graduation from William & Mary in 1959 she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card.
More recently, William & Mary alumna Stephanie Szostak '94 starred in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, along side Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep.
]]>When Doris Lamberson moved to Williamsburg in the mid-1970s, she was already a good friend of Thomas Graves, William & Mary's President at the time. She worked to update the President's House and is credited with adding a separate silver closet to the residence.
The Muscarelle Museum of Art became a "major focus" in her life. The museum was built because President Graves was informed by Lamberson that a Georgia O'Keefe painting hung unprotected in a campus building. Lamberson was also one of the founding members of the volunteer council for the museum. Though the museum itself if named after Joseph and Margaret Muscarelle, the building itself was named in Doris Lamberson's honor.
]]>William & Mary's first black residential students matriculated in 1967. Karen Ely, Janet Brown, and Lynn Briley - all women - lived together in the newly renovated basement of Jefferson Hall. Since then, African American representation at the university has increased to approximately seven percent of William and Mary’s undergraduate student body as of 2017.
In 2011, the three women were honored for the first time by the Hulon Willis Alumni Association during Homecoming Weekend. That same year the three were commemorated with a plaque which was placed in the basement of Jefferson Hall. Today the plaque can be found on the first floor of Jefferson.
Throughout the 2017-18 academic year, William & Mary commemorated 50 Years of African Americans in Residence with events around campus. During the 2017 Homecoming Parade, the Karen, Lynn and Janet served as the Grand Marshals. The same weekend, the women were presented with engraved bricks at William & Mary's Alumni House.
Janet Brown Stafer’s account of her experience as one of the three women who lived in Jefferson Hall can be found in Special Collection's oral history collection; “Historically, the responsibility for keeping men within the moral boundaries has somehow rested with women, by keeping the women in their place out of sight in the dorm locked away, was that helping to keep the men within their social moral boundaries? We were bearing that burden instead of putting the responsibility where it belonged with the men.”
]]>Sororities played a unique role in helping women matriculate into W&M after the university began accepting women in 1918. The Panhellenic sororities that have a presence at the university today - Alpha Chi Omega, Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Beta Phi, and Phi Mu - were safe spaces for women on this campus in a time where there were few women in higher education. The national governing bodies of these chapters didn’t officially allow women of color to join until the late 1960's, while William & Mary didn't allow black students to live on campus until 1967. Today the chapters remain majority-white, but women of all races at the university have found sisterhood in these chapters.
Black women wanted to create spaces where they could support each other through sisterhood. Sororities in the “Divine Nine” created chapters at William & Mary. The Mu Upsilon Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated was founded at the university in 1976; the Nu Chi chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority was founded in 1981; the Xi Lambda Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated was founded 1982; the Sigma Lambda chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated was founded 2011 in but is no longer active at the university. Non-black women of color also carved out spaces to support each other while seeking sisterhood. On April 7, 2013, nine women joined forces to create the Beta Delta chapter of Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha, Incorporada, a Latin-based sorority. The Founding Mother Class of Delta Phi Omega Sorority, Incorporated, a South Asian-interest, multicultural sorority, was founded on November 6, 2016, and the sorority’s presence at the university is continuing to grow.
Today, all Panhellenic sororities as well as Delta Sigma Theta Inc. have houses in Sorority Court.
Women have sought to support one another from the very start of their presence on campus, and sororities have been one of the keys to that support. The university is the birthplace of Greek Life, and sororities have been a special place for women to expand their horizons and build meaningful, supportive relationships.
]]>While the Wren Building has been a central focus since its opening in 1700, women have only been admitted since 1918, becoming the first coeducational institute of higher learning in Virginia. Despite this, women have held significant leadership roles here and across the country.
Initially, women students reported to separate chains of leadership. Additionally, women were restrained by rules that didn’t apply to their male classmates. For example, women had a curfew, dress codes, and were prohibited from driving in cars with male students. The first Dean of Women for this inaugural class was Caroline Francis Tupper.
William & Mary have had two women Chancellors since 1993. The first was former UK Prime Minister Lady Margaret Thatcher. In 2005, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, was appointed Chancellor; Her investiture occurred three months after her judicial retirement. Portraits of all Chancellors hang in the Wren Building.
In Spring of 2018, William & Mary announced their 28th president, Dr. Katherine Rowe. Her appointment made her the first female president. She began on July 1 and was formally inaugurated on February 8, 2019.
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