Today I went to a Rose Cafe where we talked about Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer. They were pretty important in advancing women’s education because they created a department, and then later, a school of home economics at Cornell at a time when very few women were lucky enough to get higher education. It is pretty easy to forget and not think about how different times were in the past. Back then, women had to rely on their husbands or fathers or other male relatives for everything. The women who attended Cornell must have been very brave to go to a college and get an education in home economics. Going to college certainly wasn’t the norm in those days as it is now, especially for women. I think that it’s really important that we remember these women and the work that they did. It is because of the advances made by these and other women that I am able to attend Cornell. It is because of their work that I have never been treated differently nor have I had opportunities denied to me purely because I am a woman. It is because of them that I am able to study topics that I’m interested in.