The story begins here, in this post, Sowing the Seeds of Change. Below is the continued saga.
The day of reckoning was near – May 26, 1982. We were all excited and a bit eager to attend the Student Government (SGA) meeting to approve the charter of our new honorary for senior women…
It was decided to name the organization after the first female dean of Auburn University, Dr. Katherine Cater. Dean Cater was a pioneer in women’s education and lead the way for females at Auburn University. She served as Dean of Women from 1946-76, followed by another four years as the Dean of Student Life and Social Affairs. Dean Cater was one of the few University employees to have a building named in her honor in 1980, just months before she passed away.
As part of our preparation, we approached friends of Dean Cater for insight and advice. Attending the meeting with us was Mrs. Ralph Draughon, wife of the former president of Auburn from 1947-1965; Mrs. Neil Davis, whose alum husband was an avid supporter of Civil Rights movement and instrumental in the newspaper industry; and Mrs. John Meagher, whose husband previously headed of the Auburn football program. It was an impressive legacy of Auburn’s history – or so we thought.
In hindsight, we committed the sin that many women do: we relied solely on merit and common sense for success. While you certainly can’t be successful without them, they are not enough to gain compliance. We overlooked the importance of the political process, and that was our undoing.
At the SGA meeting that night, a heated debate took place on whether to grant the Cater Society a charter. On paper, it seemed to be a no-brainer to support the group given its goals and founding member’s credentials. But because we naively believed that was enough, we were shell-shocked to find the existing senior honorary had politicked effectively. They proposed that “another honorary” would simply ”become a conglomeration” of existing groups despite the fact that no new honorary had been added since the University’s growth of 7,000 students to 18,000. After a “heated debate,” the Cater Society was denied a probationary charter.
As we stood at the brink of graduation and prepared to enter the world to serve and lead, a heavy dose of reality hit – crushing our hopes and dreams and also breaking our hearts. We felt we had been ripped out by the roots and thrown into the garbage. As we left, Mrs. Draughon commented “You girls didn’t do your homework,” meaning we naively assumed that our good works were enough to change a tradition that existed for almost ¾ of a century. 30 years later, I know she was right.
Little did we know that the seeds planted had deeper roots than this incident, and they would impact future women leaders for almost 20 years…
To be continued…
Allison Blankenship, http://www.allisonspeaks.com, http://www.UpsideTheBook.com
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