A Proud Tradition

The University of Iowa celebrates many "firsts" and special events in its long history of promoting diversity. Here are just a few:

  • 1855—The University of Iowa opens its doors as the first state university to admit men and women on an equal basis.
  • 1870—The Medical Department held its first sessions, and with eight women in its original class, it was America’s first co-ed medical school.
  • 1873—The first woman to graduate from the University’s Law Department, Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, receives her Bachelor of Laws diploma. She is possibly the first woman to earn a law degree in America.
  • 1879—G. Alexander Clark, son of America's first black ambassador to Liberia, becomes the first African American to graduate from the Iowa law school, and possibly the first African American in the nation to earn a law degree.
  • 1895—Frank Kinney Holbrook is believed to have been the first African American to compete in varsity athletics at an Iowa college and one of the first black collegiate athletes in the nation.
  • 1907—Mildred Whitcomb is named editor of The Daily Iowan, becoming the first woman to head an American college daily newspaper.
  • 1909—Dr. Laurence C. Jones, a 1907 graduate of the University of Iowa, founds the Piney Woods School in Mississippi. Piney Woods is one of five historically black boarding schools in the United States.
  • 1921—Frederick W. “Duke” Slater, the University's first African American All-America football player, graduates from Iowa and is named to the Chicago Tribune’s All-American football team. He later returned to Iowa to earn a law degree and became a municipal court judge in Cook County, Illinois. Slater Residence Hall is named in his honor.
  • 1927—The University of Iowa becomes the first tax-supported university to establish a school of religion. Iowa is also the first state university in the nation to offer a PhD.
  • 1940—Elizabeth Catlett Mora, a significant 20th-century sculptor and civil rights advocate, earns her MFA from Iowa, where she studied under the renowned painter, Grant Wood.
  • 1947—University Hospital School, the first program on a college campus devoted to rehabilitating disabled children and young adults, opens its doors to its first 20 patients.
  • 1954—Jewel Limar Prestage becomes the first black woman to receive a doctorate in political science from a U.S. university.
  • 1965—Margaret Walker Alexander, noted African American poet and activist, completes her doctoral dissertation at the University of Iowa. It is later published as a Civil War novel titled Jubilee.
  • 1966—Dr. Philip G. Hubbard, who received his doctorate from Iowa in 1954, becomes the first African American vice president at any Big Ten university when he was promoted to vice president for student services and dean of academic affairs at Iowa.
  • 1970—The University of Iowa's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allied Union is founded, making it one of the oldest such campus organizations in the United States. In fact, it is the oldest state-university recognized and continuously funded GLBTA student organization in the country.
  • 1974—The Women's Studies Program is established at the University of Iowa, making it one of the oldest such programs in the country.
  • 1993—The American Indian and Native Studies Program (AINSP) is instituted at The University of Iowa.
  • 2004—Tony Robinson, a journalism major from Davenport, Iowa, is appointed editor-in-chief of the Daily Iowan, the University's daily student newspaper. Robinson is the first African American student to hold the position.
  • 2004—UI alumus Rose Vasquez of Des Moines is appointed to the Board of Regents, state of Iowa, to fill the unexpired term of Dr. Deb Turner.

Biosciences Program
The University of Iowa
1178 Medical Laboratories
Iowa City, IA 52242-1181

Phone: 1-800-551-6787 or 319-335-8305
Fax: 319-335-7656
E-mail: biosciences@uiowa.edu
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