A look at six faculty and staff who helped blaze a trail for women

The artwork in the March Cardinal at Work Insider celebrates International Women’s Day with a nod to pioneering faculty and staff at Stanford who have come here to learn and lead—and to the thousands of others who inspire change, teach, manage and build teams, create, analyze, coach, and mentor. Stanford is home to women whose curiosity and drive has led to identifying and solving some of the world’s most pressing issues (as highlighted in Stanford Medicine's This Is My Why - Advocacy post). 

About the Insider art (left to right):

• Condoleezza Rice served as Stanford’s 10th provost, the university’s chief budget and academic officer. She was the first African American and first woman to hold the post, from 1993 to 1999, before serving as U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. Image from Stanford News Service, credit L.A. Cicero.
   
• Mary Roberts Smith is one of the first two women to earn doctorate degrees from Stanford, in 1896. When she joined the Sociology faculty later that year, she became the first full-time American professor of sociology, and published articles about women’s education, the right to vote, and other women’s issues at a time when most published literature about women were written by men. Image from Wikipedia, public domain.
   
• Mary Yost served as dean of women and associate professor of English for 25 years starting in 1921. The Stanford Daily archives show she hosted teas for students at her campus home, and traveled far and wide to learn from and influence other educators through the National Association of Deans of Women, the American Association of University Women, and the Western Division of the National Education Association. On the Farm, she was instrumental in finding scholarships for her students and developing both the women’s residence program and Stanford Health Service on campus. Image from Wikipedia, public domain.
   
• Jane Stanford co-founded the university with her husband, Leland Sr, and was instrumental in ensuring 130 women were enrolled alongside 555 men in its inaugural class and that all classes and majors were open to all. When Leland, Sr., died just two years after Stanford opened, Jane found herself responsible for funding and operating the fledgling institution for a dozen years before her own death. Image from Stanford University Archives. But of course there’s so much more to the story; read Why Jane Stanford Limited Women's Enrollment to 500 in Stanford Magazine and Early Stanford Women from the 125th anniversary archives.  
   
• Tara VanDerVeer, the Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball, who is now the all-time winningest coach in the sport's history, led the Stanford Cardinal to three NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championships, including 2021. Shs also led the U.S. national team to a gold medal in the 1996 Olympic Games. Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Learn more on Stanford Athletics’ special site Tara at the Top.
   
• Carolyn Bertiozzi, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a professor of chemistry, with courtesy appointments in Chemical & Systems Biology and Radiology, won the 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry. She is credited with founding the field of bioorthogonal chemistry to study biomolecular processes. Read about her recognition and work in the Stanford Report and see the full list of Stanford’s Nobel Laureates.

For a list of Stanford events in March that celebrate Women’s History Month by exploring womanhood, feminism, and gender, read the Stanford Report.