Gender Disparity and Issues Among Faculty

1967's Business Office Faculty[1], particularly noting Mrs. Pat Robbins the Information Director.

Positions of Female Faculty Members -

In the earliest George Mason yearbooks that are digitally cataloged, being The Advocate of 1965, we are able to see some female faculty members but the majority are male. Of the female faculty members in 1965, they are either instructors or in a variant of an assistant role, none are in leadership positions. In the 1967 The Advocate yearbook[1], we can see Mrs. Pat Robbins as the Information Director for the Business Office, she held this position for at least the two following years that the yearbooks show. It took until 1975 for there to be more women in leadership positions within George Mason[2]. After this point there is a slow increase in the amount of female faculty members in higher positions at GMU.

May 20th 1965 Faculty press conference photographed by Richard M. Sparks. [3]

The Student and Faculty Revolt of 1965 -

Six faculty members, about half of the full time faculty at George Mason College, resigned on May 20th and 21st, 1965, in protest to the new director Dr. Robert H. Reid. The relationship between faculty and Dr. Reid became an issue over his apparent “sporadic attendance at meetings, arrogance, and lack of respect for students, faculty, and staff.” [4]. Although the faculty members were discontent with Dr. Reid because of his attitude towards others, these issues were not as serious as the allegations against him regarding him possibly being dishonest about his previous employment and academic credentials. Dr. Reid had implemented a mandatory dress code for students on February 3rd 1968. This included coats and ties for men, with women being required to wear dresses or skirts with blouses. Students rebelled against this by some men wearing kilts to class and women wearing sports coats with ties on certain occasions. The tipping point for many faculty members seemed to be Dr. Reid’s “disdain” and disrespect of the Honor Code of the University of Virginia. He started to require exams to be proctored, even proctoring exams himself. Faculty had tried to bring their complaints to the Chancellor of Community Colleges for the University of Virginia, Joseph L. Vaughan, and the University’s President Edgar F. Shannon, but neither of them were willing to make any changes to George Mason’s administration at the time. Since the faculty members’ concerns were not being heard by the University officials, senior instructors: Dr. Lee Potter, Dr. Joseph Harrison, Dr. Fanny-Fern Davis, Dr. Linda Grant DePauw, and Mrs. Yveline Bretschneider submitted their resignations at a regular faculty meeting on May 20th, 1965. The last of the six faculty members that resigned in a protest to Dr. Reid’s directorship was Kosara Gavrilovic on May 21st, 1965 because she was in Europe at the time. We are highlighting this particular issue because the majority of the resigning faculty members were full-time female faculty members, and the issues with the mandatory dress code. We suspect that particularly women working during Dr. Reid’s time as director took significant issue with his leadership based on the nature of the complaints against him.