A Woman's Education - Hardcover

"One of the leading educators of our time - Jill Ker Conway - had described the challenges and
the benefits of a first rate university for women in contemporary society. Her path as President
of Smith College gives us an insider's view not only of the institutional side but the personal
demands and their burdens. It is a fascinating and important story."
--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court

"Jill Ker Conway offers an elegant and highly readable narrative of both women's education and
her own amidst the feminist revolution of the late twentieth century. This is a personal as well as
a social and cultural history -- and a compelling story besides."
-- Drew Gilpin Faust, Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and author of Mothers
of Invention

"A WOMAN'S EDUCATION is another inspiring chapter in Jill Ker Conway's life. This time she
recounts the struggle and triumphs as the first woman president of Smith College. It is a story
of strengths and hope and success in a woman's education. Nothing came easy to this gallant woman."
-- Thomas Winship, former Editor of The Boston Globe
"In A WOMAN'S EDUCATION Jill Ker Conway continues her fiercely introspective and fearless study
of her own life, public role and intellectual development. It is a compelling story of an active, ambitious
and intellectually forceful woman who has shaped her own life. And along the way, she provides an
invaluable and frank history of how a women's college met the challenges of the second wave of feminism
under the direction of a thoroughly independent thinker who was determined to build a modern, feminist
institution. As her successor, I was constantly aware of my debt to her, and found her own story of her
years at Smith entirely fascinating and instructive."
-- Mary Maples Dunn, President Emerita, Smith College

"Jill Ker Conway continues the absorbing and beautifully crafted account of her life's journey with her
experiences as president of Smith. As always, her autobiography is an excellent read for anyone who
cares about interesting lives, thoughtfully described. This particular volume should appeal to anyone who
has ever wondered what college and university presidents actually do, and why anyone would want such
a job. Jill gives her own answers to these questions with candor, humor, and acute attentiveness to the
multifaceted nature of the sometimes bizarre and apparently impenetrable office of the president."
-- Nannerl O. Keohane, President, Duke University

"Jill Conway gives the reader that rare glimpse of a whole person tacking historic events. Her language is
clear and crisp, her observations astute, her understanding of history remarkable, even as she is making it,
yet all this from a woman's point of view -- not only about success or failure, but the larger issues of living....
Ultimately, Jill Conway, like any great author, leaves us better off for our journey through A Woman's Education.
Her deep respect for life, her careful, honest, open exploration of how we live our lives and her unrelenting
belief in a set of values that have the power to take root in people and institutions makes us take stock of
our own lives. She does this graciously, joyfully, and enjoyably."
-- F Baron Harvey III, CEO, The Enterprise Foundation

"A Woman's Education provides a rare insider's view of what it means and what it takes to be a college
president, as well as a unique perspective on an institution many of us have come to know and love.
It was the first thing I handed to Carol Christ, the moment after she was elected the new President
of Smith College."
-- Shelly Lazarus, CEO, Oglesby & Mather, and Chair of the Smith College Trustees

Jill Ker Conway is the the first to have written of years as a college or university president. In this book,
nonetheless, she has set a standard to which all in the future will have to conform. In diversly interesting
English, with penetrating insight and memory, she has told of the problems and prospects of leading a
much admired college. And of doing it very well. No one can think that they have a full understanding of
women's rights, scholarly conflict, required personal commitment and true accomplishment who hasn't
read these pages. And further, no one can know what enjoyment was missed. On education, not to say
also personal biography, it is truly the book of the year.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith

"To be president of Smith from 1975 to 1985 required guts and resilience; Conway met the challenge.
Her compelling account of that roller-coaster ride prompts amazement. There is much to marvel at here;
my favorite gem is her portrayal of the aging male conservative faculty defending their cozy turf."
-- Carolyn Heilbrun, author of Writing a Woman's Life

"This masterful story interweaves lives with institutional history and modern times. The backdrop is a
renowned woman's college that was fated to be hidebound by tradition until it captured a president
whose past dictated her future and that of the college. Challenged by the opportunity, she led courageous
innovations and, amazingly agile in neutralizing foes, and intellectually honest, she chose to act on what
mattered most to the long-term viability of the college. In the process, she captured the imagination
and support of a disparate gang -- students, trustees, faculties, and administrators. It is a poignant tale of
personal and professional courage that should be read because it is all so human and so profound.
Lessons are there for the young and the old because she dares to tell the truth."
-- Margaret F. Mahoney, MEM Associates, Inc.

"As a Smith alumna and a fellow laborer in the groves of women's colleges, I found Jill Ker
Conway's book both absorbing and touching....Her educational vision and personal courage
stood her, and eventually the institution she served so well, in very good stead. A Woman's
Education is an engaging personal study of a complicated period in the women's movement and
in the development of selective women's colleges."
-- Mary Patterson McPherson, The Andrew Mellon Foundation and President Emeritus, Bryn Mawr College

Jill Ker Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales, Australia, graduated from the University of Sydney in 1958, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. In 1962 she married John Conway and moved with him to his native Canada. From 1964 to 1975 she taught at the University of Toronto, where she was also Vice President, before going to Smith College. Since 1985 she has been a visiting scholar and professor in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She serves on the boards of Nike, Merrill Lynch, and Colgate-Palmolive, and as Chairman of Lend Lease Corporation. She lives in Boston.