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 The Critical Years: Excerpts from the Oral History Project on the years 1948–72 at Boston College. |
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 Professor
Rebecca ValetteProfessor Valette has taught in the Department of Romance Languages at Boston College since 1965. She was interviewed by John Bieter, a doctoral student in history. |
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We went coed in 1969. So in fall 1968 Father Donovan called me in—he must have been vice president and dean of faculties at that point. He asked me if I would accept an appointment as assistant to the dean on women’s affairs, because they were going to be going coed the next year. And he asked me if I had any questions or reservations—if I’d be willing to do this. And I said, "Well, I—it’s my impression that women are being paid significantly less than men for the same type of work." Now this kind of discrimination wasn’t new to me. When I went to graduate school in 1959 I had gotten a grant called an NDEA, National Defense Education Act. When I got to Colorado, they told me that since I was married, I would not have this NDEA fellowship because they were quite sure that a woman would raise a family and would not go on for a Ph.D. So it was taken away from me and given to a male student. I knew then that it was an uneven playing field. I brought it up to Father Donovan anyway. I said—and he—I said, "I think my salary is really too low." He responded, "Well, by how much do you think it’s too low?" I said, "Oh, by $5,000," which was true. And he said, "Well, I’ll think about it." And I got a $500 raise. Another time I had asked why one of my colleagues who’d published much less had become associate professor. But he’d gotten a little boost as he moved up, and it was explained to me that the Church was supporting family values and obviously, a man who had a family to look after needed a larger salary than a woman who was married. This didn’t take into account that this colleague of mine had no children, and that I had three children, and that my husband had been laid off. |
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