KERNEL'S FIRST WOMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Betty Tevis "interviewing" UK basketball player Bob Brannum,
Louisville Courier-Journal, March 19, 1944

For the first time in university history, a woman, Betty Tevis, served as Kernel sports editor in 1944. The Louisville Courier-Journal featured her in an article as the first woman ever allowed into the men's basketball team dressing room to conduct interviews with the players.  

However, Tevis recalled that the entire article had been staged by the UK Public Relations Office.  She said she went along with it because she did not have “sense enough” to say “No, I’m not going to let you exploit me this way.”  She admitted that she never had access to the men’s dressing room because that was “unthinkable in those times.”  Rather, “they just posed me down there” while “a university photographer took the picture” for the press release.  

Upon learning of the press release Dean Sarah Bennett Holmes called Tevis into her office for a conference.  Holmes did not appreciate the story and the photograph of Tevis in the men's dressing room.  In her own defense Tevis confessed to Holmes that it was not her idea and that she "wouldn't think" of going into the men's dressing room.

Tevis earned an AB in Journalism degree from UK in 1946 and became the first local news editor for Radio Station WLAP in Lexington. Other journalism work took her to WLW in Cincinnati, and then to WINS and WNEW in New York City. She also wrote for Movie Life magazine.  She later married Andrew Eckdahl working in public relations at Berea College, Eastern Kentucky University, and until retirement in 1987 at the University of Kentucky.  She was the sister of novelist Walter Tevis. 

Additional information about the history of women students, faculty, and staff can be found in the recently published, Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945.

https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813179377/our-rightful-place/    

Use the code FAU25 for 25% off. 

A CENTURY OF UK HEALTH EFFORTS

During his annual presentation to the UK University Senate this week, President Eli Capilouto, as expected, devoted considerable time to discussing the current Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the campus.

Exactly one hundred years ago, then UK President Frank L. McVey also had the health of the campus on his mind.  Addressing the UK Board of Trustees at its September, 1920 meeting, McVey reported on the steps he was taking regarding the health and welfare of students, staff, and faculty.

"As previously reported ...we have received a subsidy of $11,100 from the U.S. Department of Hygiene and Public Health.  As head of the new department we have secured the services of Dr. P.K. Holmes of Ohio Wesleyan University.  He had the degree of A.B. and in addition a medical degree from Bowden Medical School.  As assistants we have secured Dr. Ireland from Bowden Medical School and Dr. Eva Locke a practicing physician in New York City.  Miss Tillie Greathouse, who was a nurse with the Barrow Unit in England during the war, has been added to the Department as nurse."

"The Department will be housed in Neville Hall.  There is need of an isolation hospital or isolation rooms for students with contagious diseases.  The city hospitals have no such provisions, but the University has a small infirmary for women.  There is a small two story brick building behind Mechanical Hall, heretofore used as a storage room that could probably be arranged for an isolation ward for men."

Dr. Holmes died four year later after a brief illness leaving a widow and four small children.  His widow, Sarah Bennett Holmes, successfully raised the children and completed her undergraduate degree (1929) and a graduate degree (1939) while working to support her family.  She became Dean of Women following the departure of Sarah Blanding in 1940.  She helped lead UK through the World War II years and advocated tirelessly for equal rights for women students.

Additional information about the history of women students, faculty, and staff can be found in the recently published, Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945.

https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813179377/our-rightful-place/    

Use the code FAU25 for 25% off. 

 9/11 REMEMBERED

Like Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 left an indelible mark on the American conscious and memory.  No one alive that day will forget where they were when they first heard the news.

Ironically, I was in the Patterson School of Diplomacy offices with Ambassador Morton Holbrook III, longtime Foreign Service officer and former U.S. consul general in China.  I had interviewed Ambassador Holbrook's father in Owensboro several times about his distinguished legal career and political experiences and I was enjoying the opportunity to meet and spend time with his accomplished son.  

Ambassador Holbrook was talking to a small group of students about careers in the Foreign Service.  Suddenly, a faculty member came into the conference room and asked if he could turn on the television.  I thought it was a very odd request but soon realized what Americans were witnessing on their televisions across the country.  

The United States and the world would never be the same.  Now, 19 years later we pause to remember.

UK WOMEN FACULTY AND THE PUSH FOR ECONOMIC EQUALITY

Frances Jewell

Since women began teaching at the University of Kentucky in the early 20th century, they have pushed for equal pay. Many will suggest, even though there have been great strides over the past twelve decades, that full equality has yet to be achieved.

For example, in 1917 Frances Jewell, an instructor in English, received half the pay of comparable male faculty in her department. This was in spite of her having earned an undergraduate degree from Vassar College and a graduate degree in English from Columbia University.

In 1917, Professor Lehre L. Dantzler, head of the English Department, requested a salary increase for Jewell. Regarding Jewell's $600 salary, Dantzler noted her excellent work and recommended a $250 increase, still $250 less than her male colleague, E. U. Bradley, also an instructor in the department who earned $1,100. In Journalism, Marguerite McLaughlin received only $750 for her work as an instructor. Sarah Marshall Chorn, instructor in Modern Languages, earned $900 while Mabel Hardy Pollitt, instructor in Ancient Languages, earned $800.

Four years later Jewell relinquished her teaching position to marry Frank McVey, president of the university. In her new position she worked tirelessly for the University of Kentucky for the next 25 years, for free.

Additional information about the history of women students, faculty, and staff can be found in the recently published, Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945.

https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813179377/our-rightful-place/    

Use the code FAU25 for 25% off.