Welcome to Global Thinking, the newsletter of the College of Arts and Sciences at Webster University.

Greetings,

Prominently displayed on my office bookshelf is a mounted enlargement of a 1950s postcard. “Just for you! Webster College,” it announces. It features inset photos of college women doing collegiate things – reading a book, painting, playing the piano, experimenting in a chemistry lab, and being picked up for a date. Across the bottom is the pitch: “Put yourself in this picture by writing Webster College, Webster Groves 19, Mo.”

Webster hasn’t been just for women since the ’60s and it hasn’t been just a college since the ’80s, but remarkable women have continued to put themselves in the picture. This issue of Global Thinking focuses on several of them, and on their global impact.

On this updated e-postcard from Arts & Sciences to you, the inset photos include one of our newest faculty members, Iran-raised sociologist Danielle McCartney, who specializes in race and gender issues. Another is Sarah Lynne Anderson, who as a student has helped establish a nonprofit to build schools and increase health education in Swaziland. 

Then there is Linda Housch Collins, inventor and coordinator of a new program which provides students with internship opportunities in social service agencies that focus on women’s needs. And we also see Jane Robert, 1969 alumna and advisory board member who only a few days ago received the French Legion of Honor in Paris. The academic program we depict, of course, is our outstanding Women’s Studies program.

When you read it, I think you’ll get the picture!

Sincerely,

David Carl Wilson, Dean

P.S. This is a good moment to remind you that our Arts & Sciences television series, also called “Global Thinking,” is currently showing an installment which features the International Institute, run by yet another outstanding woman—and holder of a Webster honorary degree—Anna Crosslin. 

If you don’t receive HEC-TV, you can watch the episode at the Arts & Sciences Web site at: www.webster.edu/depts/artsci/hectv/global_thinking_3.html.