Word: buntinged
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This statement would prove to be prophetic. Educated at home until the eighth grade, Bunting-Smith went on to pursue traditionally male-dominated disciplines, receiving an undergraduate degree in microbiology from Vassar College in 1931 and a Ph.D. in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1934.
Bunting-Smith continued her career as a microbiologist, teaching and conducting research at Bennington College, Goucher College, Yale University, and Wellesley College before serving as dean of Douglass College. In 1960, Bunting-Smith became the fifth president of Radcliffe College and the third woman to hold the position.
For Bunting-Smith, the dearth of women in intellectual, social, and political arenas was “a curious thing.” In a 1961 address to The University Women’s Forum in Philadelphia, she said educated women were underappreciated.
During her first year in office at Radcliffe, Bunting-Smith began to overturn this prevailing attitude about women’s education, implementing policies that increasingly integrated Radcliffe with Harvard and encouraged female students to be leaders outside the home.
Although Radcliffe women had begun attending classes at Harvard after a 1943 agreement formally instated joint instruction, some female students prior to Bunting-Smith’s inauguration said that they felt they were not full members of the Harvard community.