A visually impressive and remarkably informative virtual campus tour, highlighting the contributions of three centuries of women’s accomplishments at Yale, is au courant with both the current emphasis on nearly everything needing to be virtual in response to COVID-19 public safety recommendations, and with 2019-20 commemorating 50 Women at Yale 150 (50WAY150, now also going virtual).  What makes this Women at Yale Virtual Tour particularly prescient is that its website was inaugurated ten years ago, in 2010, featuring a downloadable audio tour and full-color, illustrated brochure with a walking tour and map.  This interactive multimedia resource was a gift to the Yale Women Faculty Forum (WFF) from Nancy Alexander ’79, ’84 MBA, and Phillip Bernstein ’79, ’83 M.Arch., co-sponsored by the Yale Visitor Center and the Office of the Secretary.

There are 49 notable spaces, places, and artworks, with historical commentary, of which this writer’s personal favorites include: the quietly moving “Women’s Table” sculpture by Maya Lin ’81, ’86 M.Arch.; Yale Women’s Center (basement, Durfee Hall), home to a number (6 to 25) of women’s groups in residence, and instrumental in making sexual harassment on campus more visible, a legacy initiated in 1977 by then-undergraduate Ann Olivarius ’77, ’86 JD, ’86 MBA; the site of the Yale crew team’s Title IX protests for equality in athletic facilities in 1976, portraits of Yale first women PhDs; and especially appropriate in these multi-challenging times, the Rose Center, conceived by Deborah Rose ’72, ’77 MPH, ’89 PhD, and dedicated in 2006, which incorporates a community component—the Dixwell-Yale University Community Learning Center, into a state-of-the-art Yale Police Department. 

— Dr. Lydia Temoshok ’72