Tuesday March 13, 2012
Volume CXXXIII Issue 7
End
RICHARD WEAKLEY/AVIION
...of an era Second and last time two shuttles ever seen together
RICHARD WEAKLEY/AVIION
For the last time in history, two shuttles were seen next to each other on the grounds of Kennedy Space Center. An event that occurred only one other time in shuttle program history, this sight will no longer be possible as the shuttle have beeen retired from service. Shuttle Discovery, above, was moved out of the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) for the last time. Shuttle Atlantis took
Discovery’s place in the OPF. In April, Discovery will be flown on top of NASA’s 747 Shuttle Transporter to Virginia to take its place in history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center next to Dulles Airport. Atlantis will roll over to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center in November. -Costas Sivyllis, Editor-In-Chief
The changing face of ERAU women Peter Tan & Chris Heale
News Editor & Senior Reporter “Where are all the girls?” was one of the thoughts that ran through the minds of the first few females to enroll in Embry-Riddle back in 1967. Some of our very first female graduates came back on Monday, March 5 to reflect on the history of the school. Trish Nowicki (’70) and Linda Colgan (’71) were hosted by the Women’s Center and Alumni Relations office, giving insights into their experiences as the first female students on campus to a crowd of over 45 people. Currently 11,000 out of 100,000 Riddle Alumni are female, 100 of which are involved in the ambassador program. While approximately 900 women are currently enrolled at ERAU, this was not always the case. Sitting on paisley chairs and illuminated by lamp light, Nowicki looked relaxed and smiled as she described her time at the then Riddle Aeronautical Institute. “Initially it was a two story Navy training building and the student center was just a trailer, it was not exactly what you visualize a campus to be” said Nowicki Colgan had been working at the NewsJournal at a coffee girl when somebody told her of the aviation institute opening up to females. “Just like everybody else, we were captivated by the aviation industry,” Colgan explained upon making the decision to pursue an aviation management degree. “But I expected to see other girls, and was nervous about going to a new campus.” Being one of the first four females on campus was not an easy time said Colgan. “The whole room used to stop as we walked in, it was very uncomfortable and
this went on for weeks,” described Colgan, who went on to say, “sometimes we wondered why we were here.” The first women felt isolated and were placed in their own section of the first dorm and faced different rules compared to the men.
women were not allowed to be pilots.” Colgan describes encountering harsher grading from professors, “I was a writer at the time and got a B on an essay which I knew shouldn’t have. It was because I was not a male, that was obvious.” Even with the adversity they faced, the
PETER TAN/AVION
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Samantha Foy, Marc Bernier, Linda Colgan, Trish Nowicki and Blake Haber. Foy and Haber role-played Nowicki and Colgan respectively in a renactment of the first day of school for the first women of ERAU. “We were on military time with a curfew and locked in at 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on the weekends, while the men could do what they wanted,” said Colgan. When asked whether they felt they were treated differently, Nowicki responded, “there were still a lot of barriers in what women could do. I remember sitting by the runway watching T-38s go by and thinking, wow wouldn’t that be something, but
ladies do not regret their time at the Riddle Aeronautical Institute and felt they learned a lot from their experiences “You need to have a passion in life and ERAU was and is a place where you could follow that passion,” said Colgan. “Flexible and dynamic management skills were crucial in my career and they were taught to us at ERAU.” Despite the lack of female students, the ladies did have places of solace. “There
were some wonderful female staff, I recall them giving us make-up lessons at some stage,” remarked Nowicki. “We also loved the beach; we were both beach girls and spent a lot of time studying there.” The ladies also left behind an enduring legacy at ERAU in the form of the Avion newspaper. “I began writing the SGA newsletter which was then called the Informer,” said Colgan. “I had taken some journalism classes in the past and eventually turned it into a newspaper, which was initially printed by the News-Journal. We wrote news and views and wanted it to be informative and humorous.” However, the Informer frequently clashed with the university administration. “The Administration wanted the paper to echo their views and act like propaganda, we had the view it was our paper and not the administration’s,” said Colgan The paper later ballooned to 30 staff members, with their first published picture being the first stretch 727 landing in Daytona Beach airport. Nowicki, who was co-editor, described what the early days of the paper were like. “We didn’t think of it as a women’s venue, but a student venue. People were just excited and enthusiastic to put a newspaper together.” Blake Haber from the Women’s Ambassadors Program asked what advice they would give to current female students involved at ERAU to which Nowicki responded, “be open to the fact life is dynamic, be confident in yourself and find strong mentors.” Echoing that rhetoric, Colgan added, “You should follow what you’re good at.” So what is the future for women at ERAU? continued on page A2