Firsts at the University

From GWUEncyc

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First commencement, 1824

First commencement to take place on the Ellipse, 1992

First female admitted to undergraduate school, Mabel Thurston, 1888

First female Medical School graduate, Clara Bliss Hinds, 1887

First female Law School LL.B. graduate, Marion Clark, 1916

First female full-professor in the Medical School, Mary L. Robbins, 1959

First African-American Law School graduate, Samuel Laing Williams, 1884

First female African-American Law graduate, Leah Brock McCartney, 1954

First Nobel Prize winner, Vincent du Vigneaud, 1955

First Rhodes Scholar, Robert A. Rosenfeld, class of 1971

First Pulitzer Prize winner, Samuel Flagg Bemis (history), 1927

First female to serve on GW's Board of Trustees, Jesse DuBois Fant Evans, 1924

First female President of the Student Government (Council), Lois Smith Simpson Morgenroth, elected April 1944.

The First African American Male Commencement Speaker was Mayor Walter Edward Washington in 1970.

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: Dear Daughters: A History of the Mount Vernon Seminary and College
Author or Source: University Archives subject files; Bricks Without Straw; Hatchet
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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