Lesson #2: Have an understanding spouse and rely on a mentor or two.
“I had to quit the business school faculty when I became pregnant for the first time in 1955. I retained an association with SLU through Father Leo Brown, a professor of economics and renowned labor arbitrator and mediator. While raising three children from 1955 to 1969, I kept doing what I had done as his graduate assistant, drafting arbitration opinions and writing articles for Social Order, the official publication of the Institute of Social Order, which he directed. Having full-time childcare at home, which my beloved husband Harold insisted on, I also managed to teach labor economics part-time at Washington University and Maryville University until I returned to SLU’s economics department faculty in 1969.”

Lesson #3: It’s better to have government help if you can get it.
“The U.S. Congress lent a helping hand to developing my career as an arbitrator by passing the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and amending it in 1972 to include public employees. Sex discrimination cases needed women arbitrators — at least that’s what the men involved thought. They didn’t discover until it was too late that when it comes to deciding cases, women arbitrators think the same way as men.”

Lesson #4: Take advantage of every new program to improve your image and talents. Don’t say no to any mainstream professional group.
“It’s important to join professional organizations and to start playing the politics to move up the ladder. Since I was the sole woman tenured professor in the business school in 1975, I was selected to direct the Women’s MBA project. Until that time, any strictly women’s groups did not appeal to me. I avoided professional women’s organizations because I felt they drained women’s talents away from mainstream professional organizations. But I was won over by the Monticello Grant and helped start the Women’s MBA Association, which lasted until the men students charged sex discrimination and it voted to become the unisex MBA Association to get Student Government funding.”

Lesson #5: Qualify yourself.
“Affirmative action may have had an impact on my promotions, but I also had the proper qualifications. The big thing is to qualify yourself for whatever opportunity comes along and then grab it and do the best you can. That’s why earning an MBA is so important — it will help you survive the weeding out process if you have equal qualifications.”

Lesson #6: If you want to do it, you can.
“My father was a carpenter. During the Depression, my mother took a job working in a department store for 20 cents an hour to put food on our table. The point is there always will be people who have started higher up the ladder than you. But if a woman wants to do something and has the drive, then she can do it. Throughout my career I often have been the only woman in a meeting or on a committee. I decided long ago that once you get into a position where you can make a difference, you ignore the fact you are a woman and just play with the boys.”