Named Lectures

The Alice Paul Center sponsors yearly events in honor of two pioneering women in the history of the University of Pennsylvania and the support of gender and sexuality studies.

Judith Roth Berkowitz is a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. A Penn alumna, Judy Berkowitz has generously served the University for many years. She is a founding member and past chair of the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women, past co-chair of the Council’s Student Life Committee, and past chair of the Board of Overseers of the Graduate School of Education. Judy and her husband, also a Penn alum, have endowed the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professorship in the School of Education. Alongside her service to Penn, Judy has pursued a career in business. She is president of Jarby, Inc., a buying office for women’s fashions, which she opened in 1984. She is also a Trustee of Rockefeller University and she chairs the board of the Center for Educational Innovation, a catalytic education group that was actively engaged in the administration and implementation of the Annenberg grant to the New York City Public Schools and in the design of small public schools of choice. She is a past member of the board of the New York Women’s Foundation and a trustee of Dance On, an educational project for the dancers of the New York City Ballet.

R. Jean Brownlee served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts for Women from 1960 to 1974. She was the first woman to be appointed Dean of that College and the third woman to be named an academic dean. Rebecca Jean Brownlee earned 3 Penn degrees (BS. Education, 1934, M.A. Political Science, 1936; Ph.D. Political Science, 1940), devoted more than 40 years of her career to Penn, and in 1986 received the University's Honorary Doctor of Laws in recognition of her extraordinary achievements.