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The Albright Reporter
Albright College
13th & Bern Streets
Reading, PA 19612-5234
Fax: 610-921-7295
E-mail: jstoudt@alb.edu
Dear Albright Reporter,
Your article, “Women in Science” (summer 2006), was really “déjà vu all over again” for me. When I decided on Albright, its strong reputation as a premed school was a major draw, even though I wasn’t pre-med then. I was med tech, and we took almost all the pre-med courses. I was sure I was in a strong program, but exactly how strong I would not appreciate for several years. Our class started out with nine female pre-meds, and they all got loaded with“women belong at home” because by senior year only two applied to medical school. Both were accepted – Drs. Joyce Campbell and Virginia Ettinger.
I eventually became the third woman from the class of 1968 to go to med school –14 years later. By then gender was much less of a hassle. Although some schools still had only 10 percent female students, New Jersey Med School/UMDNJ was incredibly 50-50. My age and how long it had been since I was in college became the problem.
How would I get recommendations from professors? No sweat! The AC system still worked for me. Some profs remembered me outright (I doubt this was complimentary). For others, my record triggered a recommendation. The ultimate was Dr. Leininger. He was retired but still had his attendance and grade books and could say which seat number in the first row I was assigned, that I hadn’t missed class, and even my lab grade. Only at Albright!
After getting into med school, age or gender weren’t issues anymore. You were just there to do the work. One notable exception was on the urology service. The attending physician was very much “old school” and I was the only female student in a group of six. I was prepared, not surprised or embarrassed, when he chose me to do an examination of a young man’s genitalia in front of the whole group. Since I did the exam correctly and didn’t turn red or get flustered, all he could do was grunt. My male classmates shared the laugh with me.
Cyndy Burdge, M.D. ’68
Dear Albright Reporter,
As president of the class of 1943 in our sophomore year, I take this occasion to offer a tribute to that great World War II class, which tragically lost some of its members in that conflict.
To my classmates, and other friends from that time, do you remember President Masters, Professors Horn, Green, Douds and others, freshman lineup, Stunt Night, Chapel, the Dining Hall, Chef Van Driel, the library, the campus in springtime, the soph-frosh ball, the many other dances with pretty girls in lovely gowns, and all the other things, including saddle shoes, so precious in our memories? Even with the war on, Albright seems, in retrospect, to have had a “Sleepless in Seattle” character to it, by which I mean, there was a certain magic. I hope it always will.
Winfield S. Morgan, M.D. ’43