In this interview, Charlotte Lowney Tomas, looking back on a 40-year career with Pembroke and Brown, details her upward trajectory through the ranks of the institution’s administration, beginning with her position as the secretary to Pembroke President Wriston. In 1962, she became the director of career placement at Brown, during both an exciting and tumultuous period on the Pembroke-Brown campus. Describing the politics of the administration, she notes the lack of equal pay between men and women throughout the University, attributing the disparity to both circumstance and discrimination. She became Associate Dean of Pembroke in 1966, and—recalling the turmoil of the decade—tells stories of controversial speakers coming to the university, including Brown alumni George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, who spoke at a public event at Alumnae Hall. In 1969 she stepped in as the interim Dean of Pembroke, during a year she calls “horrendous,” referring to the chaos of Anti-Vietnam and Cambodia campus protests, and various attacks on Pembroke from the Brown Daily Herald—as talk of the merger was coming to the forefront of discussion. Tomas sets the record straight, reminding listeners that the 1969 black student walkout was lead and initiated by the black women of Pembroke, the men following suit. She recounts her horror at the Brown provost’s reaction to the event, his mocking and refusal to take it seriously. Transitioning to more stable times, she explains her job as the Director of the Resumed Undergraduate Education Program (RUE) and extension school—a position she cared passionately about and held from 1971 to 1975. She then tells of her becoming the Associate and Coordinating Dean for the classes of 1992 and ‘93, advising the study abroad program for about ten years, calling this period one of her life’s highlights.
Notes:
Class year: 1957
Biographical note: Charlotte Lowney Tomas was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. She attended Bryant College, training as a secretary. She worked as a secretary at Pembroke before returning to school fulltime, receiving her AB from Pembroke in American Civilization in 1957 and her MA in American History from Brown in 1962. She held many administrative positions at Pembroke and Brown throughout her life, one of them being the Dean of Pembroke. She retired in 1990, and passed away in December of 2008 at age 78.
This collection contains oral history interviews with alumnae of Brown University, which admitted its first women students in 1891. The Women's College at Brown was renamed Pembroke College in 1928, and in 1971, Pembroke College merged with the Men's College …
