We generally remain pre-occupied with our day-to-day priorities/problems/anxieties. So it is always refreshing to be reminded of the battles waged for basic dignity in a different age and era. The fascinating story of the first woman graduate of the MIT has been forwarded to me by a friend, Ram Ramachandran, an Indian who has made the U.S.A. his home.
The May-June issue of the MIT’s Technology Review
pays a handsome tribute to Ellen Swallow -Richards, Class of 1873, the Institute’s first female graduate. “Richards helped establish a women’s chemistry laboratory in which, she wrote, ‘the question is to be solved — Have women the mental capacity for scientific work?’ During the next seven years, hundreds of women trained at the Women’s Laboratory, ensuring that future generations of women would have a place at the lab bench as well.
“The laboratory opened in November 1876 in a brick annex adjacent to the Rogers Building on the old Boston campus. The space consisted of five rooms: a reception room, a weighing room, a chemistry lab, an industrial lab with steam kettles and furnaces, and an optical lab with microscopes, spectroscopes, and other instruments. Richards, the first woman to teach at MIT, provided instruction, and Professor John Ordway supervised the lab — both without compensation…
“By the early 1880s, the success of the experiment was clear. Richards reported that ‘the capability of women to carry through a severe course of scientific education without injury to body or mind is now established.’ Moreover, she noted, their feminity was not adversely affected. ‘Our students have proved that the most severe training does not make women repulsive and does not unfit them for housewifely duties’,” she said.
“In 1883, when MIT built a new chemistry laboratory for male and female students, the Women’s Lab became obsolete and was closed. ‘The great result of the work connected with the laboratory has been the gradual overcoming of prejudice so that the doors of the school have opened year by year to [women],’ Richards wrote”
Warriors of different age and era…fighting different types of tyranny and terrorism…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.