Matina Horner | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Matina Souretis [1] July 28, 1939 [1] Roxbury, Massachusetts [1] |
| Nationality | Greek [1] |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse(s) | Joseph L. Horner [1] |
| Awards |
|
Matina Souretis Horner (born July 28, 1939) is an American psychologist who was the sixth president of Radcliffe College. Her research interests included intelligence, motivation, and achievement of women. [2] She is known for pioneering the concept of "fear of success". [3]
Horner was born in Roxbury, a neighborhood of Boston. She received her bachelor's degree in experimental psychology cum laude in 1961 from Bryn Mawr College, a master's degree in 1963 and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1968. While at the University of Michigan, she was a teaching fellow and lecturer. Horner was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. [4]
Horner joined the Harvard faculty as lecturer in the Department of Social Relations in 1969 and in 1970 became assistant professor of personality and development.
In 1972, Horner was selected the sixth and youngest president in Radcliffe's history. [4] She became president of Radcliffe College during a complicated era. During the tenure of her predecessor, Mary Bunting, the relationship between Harvard University and Radcliffe had evolved into what was known as the "non-merger merger." [2] Harvard was primarily responsible for students although Radcliffe maintained a separate Admissions and Financial Aid Office. Additionally, Radcliffe had ceded some business operations such as payroll, accounting, dining halls, library, and buildings and grounds to Harvard, but maintained control of and administered its own educational, research and alumnae programs. [2] Horner negotiated a new agreement with Harvard in 1977 that reestablished Radcliffe's financial independence, with its own administration, governing board, research programs, and a new oversight role and special programs for undergraduate women. [2]
Horner was lauded for her leadership of Radcliffe and her stance on the issue of coeducation. Many resisted the coeducation movement of merging Harvard University and Radcliffe College because it would have meant the elimination of Radcliffe College. [5] Ellen Sackson Heller (Radcliffe Class of 1939) stated, "If Radcliffe had merged, it would have meant to me that I no longer had a college." [6] A merger would also have meant that Radcliffe would lose its autonomy. Horner said, "The challenge was to see if the mandate of Radcliffe could provide a leadership model for true coeducation that gave weight to women's voices, as opposed to just letting women enter a male world." [6] Although Horner had many responsibilities, she made contact with Radcliffe students a priority during her presidency by holding weekly conferences and teaching several classes. [2] Horner remained president until 1989, when she was succeeded by Linda Wilson.
President Jimmy Carter in 1979 named Horner to the President's Commission for the National Agenda for the 1980s, and one year later, chairperson of the Task Force on the Quality of American Life. [1]
Awards Horner has received include the Catalyst award (1979), awards from the American Civil Liberties Union, National Conference of Christians and Jews (1981), the Distinguished Bostonian Award (1990), the Ellis Island Medal (1990) as well as honorary degrees from Dickinson College, the University of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Pennsylvania, Tufts University, Smith College, Wheaton College, the University of Hartford, the University of New England, and the University of Michigan. [7]
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and held the popular reputation of having an intellectual, literary, and independent-minded female student body.
The Seven Sisters are a group of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College are still women's colleges. Vassar College is currently a coeducational college and Radcliffe College was absorbed in 1999 by Harvard College.
Mary Whiton Calkins was an American philosopher and psychologist, whose work informed theory and research of memory, dreams and the self. In 1903, Calkins was the twelfth in a listing of fifty psychologists with the most merit, chosen by her peers. Calkins was refused a Ph.D. by Harvard University because of her gender.
Phi Sigma Kappa (ΦΣΚ), colloquially known as Phi Sig or PSK, is a men's social and academic fraternity with approximately 74 active chapters and provisional chapters in North America. Most of its first two dozen chapters were granted to schools in New England and Pennsylvania; therefore its early development was strongly Eastern in character, eventually operating chapters at six of the eight Ivy League schools as well as more egalitarian state schools. It later expanded to the South and West.
Theta Phi Alpha (ΘΦΑ), commonly known as Theta Phi, is a women's fraternity founded at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor on August 30, 1912. Theta Phi Alpha is one of 26 national sororities recognized in the National Panhellenic Conference. Today, Theta Phi Alpha has 55 active chapters across the United States. Theta Phi has alumnae clubs and associations in almost every major city. The organization is involved in the philanthropies Glenmary Home Missioners and The House that Theta Phi Alpha Built which help the homeless and underprivileged, specifically in the Appalachian Mountain region, and Camp Friendship, a summer camp in northeast Mississippi for children from disadvantaged and low-income homes.
Linda Joyce Greenhouse is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has covered the United States Supreme Court for nearly three decades for The New York Times. Since 2017, she is the president of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate.
Mary Caffrey Low Carver was an American librarian and educator. She was one of the five founding members of the Sigma Kappa sorority and a pioneering advocate for women's education, along with being an accomplished library scientist and writer.
Marilyn Frye is an American philosopher and radical feminist theorist. She is known for her theories on sexism, racism, oppression, and sexuality. Her writings offer discussions of feminist topics, such as: white supremacy, male privilege, and gay and lesbian marginalization. Although she approaches the issues from the perspective of justice, she is also engaged with the metaphysics, epistemology, and moral psychology of social categories.
Mary Ingraham Bunting was a bacterial geneticist and an influential American college president; Time profiled her as the magazine's November 3, 1961, cover story. She became Radcliffe College's fifth president in 1960 and was responsible for fully integrating women into Harvard University.
Karen Nelson Moore is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Her chambers are in Cleveland, Ohio.
Women's colleges in the United States are private single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that only admit female students. They are often liberal arts colleges. There were approximately 26 active women's colleges in the United States in 2023, down from a peak of 281 such colleges in the 1960s.
Caroline Walker Bynum, FBA is a Medieval scholar from the United States. She is a University Professor emerita at Columbia University and Professor emerita of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was the first woman to be appointed University Professor at Columbia. She is former Dean of Columbia's School of General Studies, served as president of the American Historical Association in 1996, and President of the Medieval Academy of America in 1997–1998.
Phi Chi Theta is one of the largest co-ed professional business fraternities in the United States. Phi Chi Theta was founded as a women's business fraternity on June 16, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois. Today, Phi Chi Theta comprises 41 collegiate and alumni chapters across the United States. While most chapters are now co-ed, there are some which have only women as members.
Linda S. Wilson is an American academic administrator who served as president of Radcliffe College from 1989 to 1999.
A'Lelia Perry Bundles is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker.
Cynthia Friend is president and chief operating officer of The Kavli Foundation. She is on leave from the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University. Friend was the first female full professor of chemistry at Harvard, attaining the position in 1989. Friend has held the Theodore William Richards Chiar in Chemistry and served as professor of materials science in the Paulson School of Engineering. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences and the American Chemical Society. Her research has focused on nano-science applied to sustainability. Friend and her group have investigated the chemical and physical properties of interfaces, by investigating important catalytic reactions and by making new materials with key chemical functionality. Her lab aims to develop solutions to important problems in energy usage and environmental chemistry.
Thelma Gorfinkle Alper was an American clinical psychologist, known for creating a study measure for women's achievement motivation. She was also the first Jewish woman to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, having careers at multiple institutions as she conducted studies primarily on memory of tasks, with an interest in its relation to women.
Dorothy Adlow (1901-1964) was a nationally known art critic and lecturer from Boston.
Deborah Cannon Partridge Wolfe was an African American educator, minister, and Education Chief of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. A self-proclaimed “teacher and preacher,” Wolfe was a woman of many accomplishments in her field, an education reformer, and a pioneer who challenged racial and gender barriers.
Pamela Trotman Reid is an American developmental psychologist, former professor, and president emerita of the University of Saint Joseph.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
