Quotes

People tried to get into the College of Forestry [and] were told “you're not going to get in, let me take you to Agriculture or some other major [and] you'll be happier.”

~ Becky Johnson

Professors were sometimes troubled they had women in their classes. They would say, “You can't do this job. There's no way you can do this job. You shouldn't be here. Go study something else.” And that was common.

~ Mina McDaniel

I graduated from Oregon State in 1979, with a degree in Interdisciplinary studies... I was one of the first of two women who got a minor in Women’s Studies, which was brand new. It wasn’t a major, they wouldn’t let it be a major, but it had just as many credits required as my major...I guess it was in the early 80s [that] I got a job at Oregon State.

~ Jo Casselberry

[There] was a certain mindset that there were traditional expectations of women's roles. A young woman came to me in those first couple of years. She wanted to work in the sheep barns because she needed to work and she had been raised on a sheep farm. The head of the department said, "We just don't allow women to do this. You know, it just isn't safe. We can't do this." Well, of course, that's done all the time now.

~ Jo Anne Trow

I remember a drafting class [and] the professor, elderly, very nice man, [said] we were to draw [a piston]. And he said, “Just this and this.” I observed all of the guys go, “Oh, yeah, right.” And I'm sitting there thinking [laughs], “I don't know how to draw [a piston].” [He] patted me on the back and said, “Honey I know you grew up playing with dolls.” He wasn't trying to be demeaning, but this was his mindset: this isn't your world … this is going to be hard … nobody expects you to know what that is … let me tell you are supposed to do. As I look back I think that's where this cultural, generational evolution happened. I had to work really hard in that class, because the drawing references things I hadn't been exposed to.

 ~ Paula Hammond