Millicent McIntosh -- Former President of Barnard
College -- Dies at 102; Her Views on Work and
Family were an Inspiration to Generations of Students
Posted
January 4, 2001
NEW
YORK, N.Y. -- Millicent McIntosh, a distinguished
educator and advocate for women combining multiple
roles, who led Barnard College for 15 years and
The Brearley School for 17 years, died Wednesday
evening, January 3, in her sleep at her home in
Tyringham, Mass., at the age of 102.
Born
on Nov. 30, 1898, McIntosh brought a warmth, zest
and intelligence to her work and personal life
that was still evident at her 100th birthday celebration
at Barnard in 1998, and at a similar celebration
at The Brearley School that year.
McIntosh
was long an advocate for the importance of women's
combining a demanding career and rewarding personal
life. She deplored the tendency of many educated
women to "settle down into domesticity and never
raise a peep again" and on Nov. 28, 1946, while
head of Brearley, was quoted in The New York
Herald Tribune as saying: "it is the great
problem of the college graduate to find in her
personal life the fullest expression of her powers.
This may or may not lie in a career ... what is
important is for each individual to order her
life so that she becomes a happy, creative person.
... This is equally true of men."
Judith
Shapiro, a cultural anthropologist who is president
of Barnard, said: "She was an inspiration to all
Barnard women who wanted a full life of career
and family. The skills and graciousness she brought
to being president at Barnard were with her to
the end."
Born
Margaret Millicent Carey at the close of the 19th
century to Anthony Morris and Margaret Cheston
(Thomas) Carey, McIntosh was graduated from The
Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, and went on to
earn a degree in English magna cum laude
from Bryn Mawr College. She studied at Newnham
College, Cambridge University, and earned her
Ph.D. in English from Johns Hopkins University.
Part of an academically inclined family, she was
a niece of M. Carey Thomas, the former president
of Bryn Mawr. Between college and graduate school,
she was employed as a social worker in Baltimore.
McIntosh
took her first job in higher education in 1926
when she joined Bryn Mawr as an instructor of
English, and was named dean of freshmen in 1928.
In 1930, she was named head of The Brearley School,
a private school for girls in New York City, a
position in which she remained for 17 years and
during which she gave birth to five children.
During her tenure, Brearley grew substantially
and modernized, moving to a full-day from a part-time
program, introducing aptitude tests and remedial
courses and an expanded science program; McIntosh
even taught a sex education class as part of the
sixth-grade biology course.
In 1932, she married Rustin McIntosh, M.D., a
pediatrician, who was Carpentier Professor of
Pediatrics at Columbia University's College of
Physicians and Surgeons, and who was later director
of the New York Babies Hospital. He died in 1986.
In
November 1946 she was named as Barnard's fourth
leader, taking office in July 1947. In a 1979
essay that displayed her dry sense of humor, she
recalled that her first act as president was to
buy a Good Humor ice cream bar. Sitting in front
of Brooks Hall to eat it, she recalled that just
as it began to melt and "sprinkle itself all over
me," one Miss Doty, a college official, approached,
with a doubtful look. McIntosh recalled: "I rose
to my feet and said, 'I'm Millicent Mcintosh'
and I think for the first time in her life, Miss
Doty had nothing to say."
As
president of Barnard until 1962, McIntosh oversaw
a period of substantial growth in endowment and
facilities, including the building of Lehman Library
in 1959 and Reid Hall in 1961. She also broadened
access to the College, paying special attention
to the children of World War II refugees, enhanced
faculty salaries and increased the exchange of
courses and teachers between Barnard and Columbia.
In 1969, the college's new student center was
named in her honor.
During
her tenure as president, McIntosh emphasized the
connection between living and learning, and the
development of the whole person. She once said:
"We must make our education process increasingly
effective. We must find the magical link between
thought and action, between teaching and a creative
use of knowledge, between moral principle and
practice."
On
the occasion of McIntosh's 100th birthday celebration
at Barnard, Mary Gordon, the writer and Millicent
C. McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard, wrote:
"You have always represented the most felicitous
combination of the mind's life enriched by a humanity
that allowed you to live imaginatively, generously,
and intensely. You have insisted, always, that
a woman need not live partially and incompletely."
She
and her husband moved to the family's farmhouse
in Tyringham in 1962 following her retirement
from Barnard. Active until the end of her life,
this past Christmas she joined members of her
family in singing carols. She loved to have classical
music around her, and her family, many of whom
play instruments, had frequent musical occasions
at her house.
She
is survived by five children: James McIntosh,
of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a professor of American
Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor;
R. Carey McIntosh, a retired professor of English
literature, of Tyringham, Mass., and New York
City; Susan McIntosh Lloyd, of Tinmouth, Vermont,
who taught history, urban service, and music at
Phillips Academy Andover; Kenneth McIntosh, of
West Newton, Mass., a professor of pediatrics
at Harvard University, who practices medicine
at Children's Hospital; and J. Richard Mcintosh,
a professor of microbiology at the University
of Colorado at Boulder.
McIntosh
received seven honorary degrees from institutions
including Smith College (1940), New York University
(1947) and Princeton University. She was a member
of the Society of Friends. She was a longtime
trustee of Bryn Mawr School, Bryn Mawr College
and Bank Street College of Education, and she
continued her membership in the Homewood Friends
Meeting in Baltimore.
There
will be a memorial service for her in Tyringham,
Mass., in the late spring or early summer. In
lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent in
her honor to The American Friends Service Committee,
1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, Penn., 19102.
Contact:
Lucas Held, Barnard, 212-854-7583, or 203-387-2969
Joan Ferrante (family) 212-865-9124
Susan Lloyd (family) 802-235-9016
Jo David, The Brearley School, 212-570-8621 or
203-259-8395
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