WISMAC History

Growing Awareness

Over the past 25 years, the number of women on our faculty has grown from 62 to almost 400. Until 1993, there was no formal mechanism for women to network with each other on our campus in order to address gender-related issues. In 1993, UT Southwestern celebrated its 50th anniversary with a world-class, two-day symposium featuring speakers from around the world. To our dismay, not a single woman was represented on the program.

This led to a campus-wide protest, which resulted in a meeting between Drs. Ken Wildenthal, Carole Mendelson, Ellen Vitetta and several members of the Symposium Organizing Committee. Out of the that meeting grew an awareness of the part of the administration and some of our senior male faculty that women were not equally represented in many areas of campus life.

Standing Committee Established

To remedy this, in 1994, Dr. Wildenthal appointed WISMAC as a new standing committee at UT Southwestern. Our initial charges were to create an annual professorship for a distinguished female scientist, physician, or health care specialist, to develop a directory of female faculty members (no database existed at that time), and to start a newsletter (website).

The Southwestern Medical Foundation, which had sponsored the 50th Anniversary Symposium, generously agreed to provide us with an annual budget for these activities.

Accomplishing Goals

Since 1994, our Committee has met monthly and has accomplished a number of important goals:

• Created a visiting professorship
• Generated a directory of female faculty
• Developed a website
• Hosted workshops
• Promoted the initiative of on-campus childcare facilities