Customer Reviews

A Woman's Education

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It is a rare gift to be able to write an autobiography that is so smart and engaging, keeping the reader entranced and wishing the book would go on an on. Conway has this gift (as she did with her first two memoirs). This book should be required reading in all college courses dealing with the subject of women in higher education. Conway laid the foundation for Smith to have the phenomenal endowment it enjoys today all the while keeping its superior academic and intellectual standards intact. In an engaging account she delves into her memories and gives the reader an in-depth view into her history-making experience as the first female president of Smith as well as her personal battles (and triumphs) along the way. This book is a gem.

This is the most thought-provoking book in Jill Ker Conway's series of autobiographies. While the first book centered heavily on Conway's emotional development and the second book dealt mainly with her intellectual development, in the third book she describes her changing world and academic perspectives. In A Woman's Education, Conway really challenges her readers to think critically about how women should be educated, the role of a private women's college, and ultimately what it means to be successful as a female.
A previous reviewer mentioned that they felt like they were reading a textbook while reading A Woman's Education. While this book definitely has a more academic tone, it does not resemble a textbook in any other way. Instead, reading through A Woman's Education, feels a lot more like being in an intimate college class taught by Conway.

If you are involved as a university alum in one or many of your alma mater's boards, directorates, planning committees and/or fund raising campaigns, you will find it fascinating to learn from Ms. Conway what it was like from her perspective to head a major US college for ten years. It doesn't always happen that such a dynamic academic leader is also a talented writer--and takes the time to write a book about it.

Conway's previous autobiographical installments, "The Road From Coorain" and "True North," were wonderful. I found them lyrical and insightful. At the risk of hyperbole, they should be considered classics in the genre of autobiography. "A Woman's Education" simply doesn't attain that status. The focus of the book is more limited and vastly different from the previous installments. It truly seems more of a paean to Smith College. This is all well and good, but not what I was expecting.

The insights into Conway's character seemed oddly lacking. While she discusses at great length the politics involved in governing the various backbiting academics at the college, very little is mentioned about her mother's death (which she notes was very disturbing to her given their difficult relationship), little is mentioned (other than superficially) of her husband's battle with depression and her abilities to handle that as well as her presidential chores, and little is made of her husband's neurological illness and how that affected both of their lives. In short, I found her discussion of her interior life to be superficial -- quite unlike her first two installments. And her interior life is what makes her a remarkable person. I'd like to know what made her tick during this time period in her life, but I don't feel that I got any of that from this book.

This book is a polemical for women's separate education. Although I agree with Conway that Smith and other institutions like it fulfill a great void in this country (and in the world, for that matter), I didn't expect this book to be so overwhelmingly devoted to the topic. At times I felt it was one big recruitment tract -- whether to attract more students or to attract more funding for the school, I haven't quite decided.

When first told of this book, I looked forward to reading about a woman who had achieved such a position - the first female president of Smith College. I was soon very disappointed, and am not certain exactly how I waded through the 143 pages. "A Woman's Education" gave me no insight into the person who is Jill Kerr Conway. I do not know her any better than I did prior to reading this book. (I have not read her prior two books) Her concentration appeared to be focused on the male-dominated educational system, and the fact that she is a feminist and wanted Smith College to be known as a feminist insititution. One hundred and forty-three pages is a little overly long to drill this message into a reader's brain.

It would have been more interesting to know about Jill Kerr Conway. While she does describe her struggles with an aging faculty and touches on the backbiting politics of Smith College in the mid-1970's, she comes across as a person completely devoid of any human emotion. Even her husband's bi-polar condition and her mother's death are treated as mere facts and the reader is left wondering what, if anything, Jill Kerr Conway truly felt about these traumatic events occuring in her life at the same time as taking over the position of president at Smith College. I came away from this book knowing only that Jill Kerr Conway considers herself a feminist, that her major area of study was history, and nothing more. Surely, no one is that uninteresting?

The feel of this book reads as a textbook, and it seems Ms. Conway wrote it more from the position of a history professor than from a more human aspect. This is the type of book that a Women's Studies professor would deem required reading, and I truly felt that it is to those students who Ms. Conway was writing to.

AND I FELT REALLY CONNECTED TO THE AUTHOR

I really can't explain my feelings in words. Look at the subject first then read on. They are all by Dr. Jill Ker Conway (shes a phd). The titles are The Road from Coorain (also a Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theater movie as well), True North, and A Women's Education. Is she orginally from New South Wales, Australia. Came to the United States for graduate school, but stayed there after that, but was Canada as well for 6 years. Boys you will also love reading them as well. Thank you.