1967

Women had been hired for full-time professional appointments in the department only from the late 1960s. Marcia Wright, a scholar of East Central Africa, was the first woman to be hired as an assistant professor of history in 1967. Nina Garsoian, who taught at the department of Middle East Language from 1962, was the first woman to receive tenure in the department in 1969. It was not until the early 1970s however, largely as a result of government pressure, that the university committed itself to expanding the number of female faculty. In 1973/4 the department conducted a search and hired three female scholars in the rank of assistant professor in European and American history.