Glasgow University Students Representative Council

Now is the time to reflect on how the University recognises women and minority groups for their achievements. The University on the verge of beginning a massive redevelopment of main campus and soon new buildings will spring up, old ones torn down. Currently only one building on campus is named after a woman, Queen Margaret Union building. This is despite the enormous contribution that female and other alumni from marginalised groups have made to the University and to society.

The SRC raised this with the Principal and other senior managers before bringing policy to the University’s Equality and Diversity Strategy Committee and Estates Committee. The Policy was unanimously adopted and will form a central part the campus redevelopment.

When the University was founded in 1451 it was a male only institution. The first females graduated in 1894 after a change in Scottish law and since then we have produced world changing female graduates. It is about time we recognised their achievements.

Jessie Campbell, Isabella Elder and Janet Galloway were instrumental in giving access to higher education for women in Scotland. They founded the Queen Margaret College, the precursor to the Queen Margaret Union which remains today.  Marion Gilchrist and Ruth Pirret were amongst the first women to graduate in Scotland thanks to the College. Pirret, who graduated in Pure Science, would go on to discover isotopes with Fredrick Soddy only to be snubbed when Soddy alone was awarded a Nobel Prize for the discovery. In 1967 Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars and, like Pirret, was snubbed when her supervisor Tony Hewish and Martin Ryle were awarded a Nobel Prize.

The University also has notable black alumni. The first African-American to graduate with a degree in medicine was James McCune Smith who graduated from Glasgow in 1837. Born a slave he was freed in 1827 in New York but was denied entry to American universities. He applied to Glasgow and was achieved a BA, an MA and an MD.

Andrew Watson was Scotland’s first black football player. He studied engineering and was captain of the national Scottish football team, playing for them three times. He never turned professional but predates the first professional black football player, Arthur Wharton, by a decade.

_{Image credit: University of Glasgow}