Photo display focuses on women’s history at Penn State Harrisburg

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — In honor of Women's History Month, the Madlyn L. Hanes Library at Penn State Harrisburg is displaying a small selection of photos of women and women's history events that have taken place at the college since 1968.

The display also is part of the celebration honoring Hanes, the former college chancellor and recently retired senior vice president for Penn State Commonwealth Campuses, and the renaming of the campus library in her honor.

The display, which will run through March, will feature:

• Women who were a part of the first graduating class in 1968; of the original 12 undergraduate students who graduated from the Capitol Campus, more than half were women.
• Twyla Brown, a Student Affairs staff secretary who earned the 1971 Capitolite dedication in which students wrote, “with her concern and kindness she converted that [Student Affairs] office into a ‘home’ away from home.”
• Jean Kresge, who organized the college’s first health fair in 1980.
• The Commission for Women, established in 1981.
• Barbara Thompson, who helped establish the Office of Multicultural Recruitment and Community Affairs.
• Alice Marshall, a Harrisburg-area journalist and researcher who collected materials related to women’s history and donated the collection to the college in 1991.
• The women’s studies minor created in 1996 with Carol Nechemias, associate professor emerita of public policy and political science in the School of Public Affairs, as one of the committee leaders.
• Madlyn Hanes, who in 2000 was named college provost and dean, a title later changed to chancellor
• Felicia Brown-Haywood, retired director of Student Affairs, who earned the 2006 James Robinson Equal Opportunity Award presented by the Penn State Alumni Association, acknowledging her passion and advocacy for diversity and cross-cultural communication.
• Oranee Tawatnuntachai, associate professor of finance, who in 2010 won the Teaching Fellow Award for Teaching Excellence from the Penn State Alumni Association after previously earning the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008. She was the second Penn State Harrisburg professor to earn both awards and only the fourth Penn State professor to do so.
• "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" gathered more than 100 participants in its inaugural year, 2014.
• Beverly Cigler, distinguished professor emerita of public policy and administration, in 2015, was the first woman at the college to earn a "Distinguished Faculty" title when she was named distinguished professor of public policy and administration.

These and other stories about women’s history at Penn State Harrisburg also can be found at the 50 Years of Women @ Penn State Harrisburg blog photo series.