Molly Manning, Managing Editor
Over a century ago, in an era of sexism and segregation, VCU’s first female graduates crossed the stage. Women studying STEM at VCU today say they appreciate the progress they championed, but divides still exist within certain fields. There is more work to be done.
Innis Steinmetz became the first woman to graduate from the Medical College of Virginia in 1920 — and in the same year, the St. Philip Hospital School of Nursing opened its doors to a class of 10 Black, female nursing students. MCV opened the hospital as a separate, segregated school at a time when it was mandated, according to VCU News.
Bessie Conway, Adelaide Royster Thomas and Helena Bell Wooldridge were the first St. Philip’s graduates in 1923. A commencement ceremony was held the following year at the First African Baptist Church, celebrating them as well as the 1924 graduates — Lily Leila DeWeaver, Dorothy Tanner Hooper, Rebecca Thompson Johnson, Thelma Kathleen Jordan, Catherine Ellerson McDowell and Willie Mae Moody.
Though St. Philip shared a director with MCV’s School of Nursing and was aimed at modeling the school, St. Philip students had lesser facilities and resources, limited space and faced discrimination from patients and doctors alike.
Selah Porter, a third-year biology, pre-medicine student said she admires the first female graduates and appreciates the opportunities she’s been allowed as a result.
“As a Black woman, I know that just being the first of anything is especially tough, and so I’m sure they faced a lot of hate and discrimination and criticism,” Porter said. “I’m really happy that people took that first step so that I and other women in my family could have that opportunity that we have to get educated.”
While Porter said there’s always “room for improvement” for careers to be more open to women, she hasn’t felt unwelcome in any spaces at VCU because of her gender.
“I would definitely say there’s definitely areas of study where there’s less female representation. And then areas of study where it’s expected to be high female representation like nursing, or education, things like that,” Porter said. “I think it’s also just like a social norm kind of thing as well. You know, like women are supposed to be caregivers and nurturers so they’re expected to go into those roles.”
Today, over 60% of VCU’s students are legally female — 18,554 female students of the 29,288 total enrolled in the Fall 2025 semester, according to VCU. Of the total students enrolled in the Fall 2025 semester, 14,885 students identify as a cisgender woman, exploring, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, nonbinary, questioning or a transgender woman.
Maya Kamat, a second-year biology and bioinformatics student said though it’s a “huge deal” that women make up so much of higher education now, though she thinks the numbers are skewed based on fields of study.
“Definitely in health sciences there’s a lot of women and in arts there’s a lot of women, but in other areas like coding and math and physics music and certain sub-specialties within STEM, I think there’s still that gap,” Kamat said. “I think that’s so important that we continue to have women in all different fields because women are the people that are going to take your health issues the most seriously and just more likely to be receptive to unlearning biases.”
Kamat pointed to cultural bias as a factor in the divide — she remembers her high school and first-level math and coding classes with more even distribution of gender identities, but said as she advanced into higher-level classes there were fewer women.
“I think a lot of that has to do with cultural expectation or like even when you see how women talk about themselves, sometimes like it’s like ‘girl math’ and stuff like that,” Kamat said. “It’s important to be cognizant of how you’re talking about women and how they are able to be logical and be in these fields as well.”
Men continue to outnumber women in physics, engineering and computer science, or PECS, majors, a gap that has widened in the 10 years leading up to 2022, according to a Brookings analysis.
VCU has worked to remedy the structural barriers in place for women in STEM fields — the ADVANCE-VCU project, introduced in 2018, works to diversify faculty in STEM and intersecting departments, in turn increasing recruitment, retention and advancement of female STEM faculty.
Third-year bioinformatics student Rhea Chatterjee said while she’s seen progress for women in higher education, that doesn’t mean they don’t continue to face issues of sexism or other barriers. Within her field of study, Chatterjee said she often faces the assumption that she doesn’t know computer science.
Looking back at the women who paved the way for others in higher education, Chatterjee appreciates those who came before her.
“My grandmothers, through famines, got a master’s degree and during this month I’m really grateful for them, because of that, I don’t have to sit here and I don’t have the same worries as other people and I recognize that it’s such a privilege to have,” Chatterjee said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Maya Kamat previously contributed an opinion piece to The CT.