Barnard Mourns Progressive President

Martha Peterson, the seventh president of Barnard College, died on July 14 at her home in Madison, Wisconsin of complications from Alzheimer's disease. She was 90.

Peterson held her position at Barnard from 1967 until 1975, presiding over the college during the student demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In this tumultuous time, Peterson is said to have handled the situation well.

"She heard everybody out," Barnard Dean Dorothy Denburg said. Denburg was a student when Peterson took the position of president. According to Denburg, Peterson held a town hall meeting to let the students speak their minds.

Peterson also led Barnard through the most difficult time in Barnard-Columbia relations, according to Robert McCaughey, Barnard history professor, author of Stand, Columbia, and faculty member during Peterson's presidency.

"She handled it very effectively, defending Barnard's interests and representing women's education when Columbia was still a decade away from taking women undergraduates," McCaughey said.

Peterson expanded cross-registration so that Barnard and Columbia students could take an unlimited number of courses at either school.

She had the respect of Columbia administrators, who were "impressed in how she played a weak hand," McCaughey said.

The unionization of Barnard faculty was yet another difficulty during Peterson's presidency. Instead of joining a union, the faculty chose to form a salary committee, a form of which still exists today.

Peterson, born in 1916 in Jamestown, Kansas, graduated from the University of Kansas in 1937. She taught high school math before receiving her master's degree in educational psychology. Peterson became the dean of women at the University of Kansas and then took on a similar role at the University of Wisconsin. She was chosen to become Barnard's seventh president after a national search, a practice that was uncommon at the time.

Unlike many of Barnard's presidents, Peterson was "not an academic academic" and "not New Yorkey," according to McCaughey. During her presidency she lived on Riverside Drive with her companion, who worked in the Psychology Department.

"Martha Peterson was a can-do, straight from the hip sort of person," McCaughey said. "She was quick on her feet in lots of different ways."

"She was a straightforward, down-to-earth, and very warm person," Denburg agreed.

Peterson left Barnard in 1975 and became president of Beloit College in Wisconsin. In her seven years at Beloit, she is praised for increasing enrollment and the endowment during an unstable time for the college.

Peterson's painted portrait hangs in the Sulzberger Parlor. She is survived by her companion Dr. Maxine Bennett.