{"id":690,"date":"2010-12-07T02:42:46","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T02:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchbdev.wpengine.com\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/?p=690"},"modified":"2019-03-06T19:46:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T19:46:25","slug":"interview-professor-helen-cafferty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/process-of-coeducation\/interview-professor-helen-cafferty\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Professor Helen Cafferty by K. Skyler Walley &#8217;12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_927\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-927\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-927\" title=\"Professor Helen Cafferty\" src=\"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/files\/2011\/12\/helen-cafferty.jpg\" alt=\"Professor Helen Cafferty\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-927\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Helen Cafferty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Finding Her Way Through the Bowdoin Professorial Ranks: A Discussion with Helen Cafferty<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>As one of the first female professors hired at Bowdoin during its transition to coeducation, and <em>the<\/em> <em>first<\/em> female professor to pass through all the ranks, from assistant to associate to full professor, Helen Cafferty has had a remarkable experience as a Bowdoin faculty member. To hear about how she established herself in the German Department, introduced unofficial women\u2019s studies courses, and navigated the still predominantly male Bowdoin campus, listen to the audio below.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Audio:<\/strong> click below to begin listening<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-690-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/learn.bowdoin.edu\/gender-women\/audio\/professor-helen-cafferty-interview.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/learn.bowdoin.edu\/gender-women\/audio\/professor-helen-cafferty-interview.mp3\">http:\/\/learn.bowdoin.edu\/gender-women\/audio\/professor-helen-cafferty-interview.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Intriguing Pieces:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Time:<\/em> 00:02:20<\/p>\n<p><em>Quotation:<\/em> [In reference to applying to be a professor] <em>\u201cSo when it came to Bowdoin, I had a long series of hour interviews with everyone on the faculty committee and they were very cavalier and gracious, and perhaps just a touch patronizing, but with the best motivation I think\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Time<\/em>: 00:22:45<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Quotation:<\/span> [In reference to recounting memorable early experiences as a professor] <em>\u201cOne time, I think this was in the third year of German language class, I did something differently, I basically lectured in German and wrote on the board a lot\u2026And so I talked about existentialism in German literature in German\u2026and one of the students came up afterwards and said, \u201cFinally you are getting the hang of what it means to be a teacher at Bowdoin!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Time:<\/em> 00:39:26<\/p>\n<p><em>Quotation:<\/em> [In reference to providing classes, although unofficial at the time, concentrating on women] <em>\u201cI did teach, co-teach, a course on literature and women. And this was a representation of women as well as the cultural status of women, sociological status of women, as in the context of the literature\u2026and then a course on history of German literature with a focus on women\u2026that was very satisfying, these early attempts to have a presence\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Citation:<\/strong> I, Skyler Walley, interviewed Professor Helen Cafferty on Friday, October 21, 2011, in room 403 of Adams Hall at Bowdoin College. We discussed Professor Cafferty\u2019s experience at Bowdoin as a faculty member, and in particular, as one of the first female faculty members present during Bowdoin\u2019s transition to coeducation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Finding Her Way Through the Bowdoin Professorial Ranks: A Discussion with Helen Cafferty \u00a0 \u00a0As one of the first female professors hired at Bowdoin during its transition to coeducation, and the first female professor to pass through all the ranks, from assistant to associate to full professor, Helen Cafferty has had a remarkable experience [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,162,267,3],"tags":[269,129,268],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-curriculum","category-oral-history-interview-process-of-coeducation","category-oral-history-interview-curriculum","category-process-of-coeducation","tag-helen-cafferty","tag-interview","tag-professor","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}