Women in Xavier's
Today if the women students and alumni of St. Xavier's College are grateful for the privilege of being on campus, they need to shower accolades on two most farsighted, enligthened and progressive German Jesuits - Fr. Weingartner, the Rector, and Fr. Sterp, the Principal of St. Xavier's College, who opened the gates of this institution for the first time to girls in 1912. Like the proverbial camel, the feminine invasion which started as a tremulous ten-girl edge, has now wedged itself firmly in the life of St. Xavier's, and like all blessings, the numbers have increased a hundredfold since 1912.
Among the prominent women alumni, who have excelled in their chosen fields, there's Violet Alva, who was the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Gulestan Billimoria, a prominent social worker and one time Sheriff of Bombay, and Mothers Josephine Sala and M. Ignacia, who have held high posts in their respective religious orders. Irene Heredia stood first in the B.A the same year as our Mayor, Dr. Kulkarni, was first in the B.Sc., and she became President of the Maharastra Womens' Council; and we could name many others in various professions and walks of life.
Not content with appropriating the front benches of the classroom, St. Xavier's "graduettes" tried hard to crash the male barrier of the lecture platform. For long they had to be pacified with the crumbs of fellowships and demonstratorships, with two very short-lived appointments as lecturers. In 1953, however, Fr. M.M. Balaguer, a man of vision and courage, took the bold step of appointing a woman lecturer in the Department of Microbiology, and today, though the increase has not been as spectacular as with the student population, a large section of our teaching staff consists of women lecturers.
In the centenary year an even more revolutionary step was taken by appointing a woman as Acting Vice-Principal (Science) - the first lay person to hold the post.
If the mists of uncertainty which veil the future were to rise for a moment, what new heights would we see women reaching, in the new Millenium, within the student and staff body of St. Xavier's?