Speech from 1973 Continuing Education Conference for Women

Continuing Education Conference for Women October 26, 1973 Towson State College Sense of humor -- "Do you know that women's groups have no sense of humor?" -- "No, but if you hum a few bars, perhaps I can pick up the tune." I was most interested in Jean Campbell's remarks that her president received a plaque stating that he "should take a woman to lunch." I've been thinking about this during the speech in terms of whether I should do this but decided that my initiating such an encounter would be consistent with the traditional male tole -- and out of place. Hence I am expressing my wilingness to have lunch with whomever asks me, male or female. I will wait -- I've eaten alone before. Inasmuch as I agree with what most of the speakers said, I will be brief. I will try to highlight the main points with which I agree and also try to indicate other areas of concern not touched upon by our speakers. 1. I agree heartily with Professor Campbells' statement that successful innovation depends upon committed top administration, self-starting female leadership, goal-directed planning tailored to the institution, and a constituency. My observation, at least here at Towson State, is that the most important of these four variables is self-starting female leadership, which we certainly have here. The constituency is there, goal direction is determined by committed people an, as we know from studying the sociology of group movements, institutions begin to move when committed people shake the cobwebs out of them. It would appear, again from my observations at Towson, that there is considerable female talent ready to do just that. For that reason, I am very optimistic about the future of Continuing Education programs for women. I would take slight exception with Professor Campbell's remarks about the need for outside funding. From listening to Jean O'Barr's