UNIVERSITY WOMEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23124, 24 August 1938, Page 5

UNIVERSITY WOMEN

MEMBERS OF SENATE VARIETY OF CAREERS PROFESSIONS IN SYDNEY University women are making their way in a variety pf professions, states a Sydney writer. .From the Faculty of Science only three women have so far carried off its blue ribbon —the degree of doctor. These brilliant women are Dr. Claire Weekes, who is at present interested in a travel bureau in Sydney; Dr. Lilian Eraser, who is engaged in research work in London; and Dr. Ida Brown, a lecturer in geology at her Alma Mater.

This tall, slim, soft-voiced young woman, as modestly retiring as the violets of poetic fancy, knows her fossils like the average woman knows just what is on her pantry shelves. Before her appointment as lecturer she did some solid research work 011 the geology of the far south coast of New South Wales—from Milton to Eden — as a Macleay Research Fellow of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. In 1933 Dr. Ida Brown visited Canada as a delegate to the fifth Pacific Science Congress in Victoria and Vancouver in British Columbia. At the end of the present Michaelmas term she will leave for England to carry out turther palaeontological research in Cambridge and London. With her suitcases will be plenty of Australian fossils going home to meet their English cousins 1 Veterinary Graduate Miss Patricia Littlejohn, since married, enjoys the distinction ot being the first woman graduate in veterinary science. This she accomplished in 1935, so that her pet auimals must easily have the glossiest coats in the neighbourhood. It is just over 15 years since Miss Lorna Byrne graduated Bachelor ol Agriculture; she belongs to the pioneering group of women in this faculty and to-day is in charge of the Women's Section of the Department of Agriculture in Sydney. Women doctors are gradually wearing down the strong prejudice that has definitely existed, at least in the past, against them. It is hardly likely that any woman undertakes a medical course 011 just an idle whim. She must surely have an urge for that type ol work", and her long, arduous training must fit her for her job. To-day even the Medical School has some women 011 its stafi. Miss Garde is a lecturer in histology in the Department of Anatomy, and Miss E. Hindmarsh until recently was for some years the only woman on the physiologv staff and lectured in bio-chemistry. llNhealth has unfortunately caused her retirement, and now Miss Doris Anderson, a graduate of Mel bourne, is an assistant-lecturer in bio-chemistrv. v

In this age of bustle, hurry and speed it is almost refreshing to think of the Senate, the governing body of the university, managing its affairs with the greatest dignity and decorum. Capable members of this august body are Dame Constance D'Arcy and Miss Fanny Cohen, who are both women well known for their lives of public usefulness. University women are proud of them, perhaps they may sometimes feel a little reflected glory from them. And, in conclusion, let it be known that university women are quite feminine, and that the great majority of them do marry. Those who .do not probably stay unwed for the very same reasons that other women in other spheres of life do not marry, the main one being that they prefer to be single.