Kelli Reynolds and Martha Loudder
In a StoryCorps interview with colleague Kelli Reynolds, Texas A&M’s Dr. Martha Loudder - a highly-acclaimed financial accounting professor and longtime associate dean for undergraduate studies - recounts the gender bias encountered after graduating in 1971 at the top of her Aggie class where she was the sole woman in a 100-person program.
- [Martha Loudder] Well I graduated from college with a degree in accounting in 1971 and that was before the 1974 law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender. And I was the only female of about, probably over 100 graduates in accounting, and I graduated at the top of my class. And I had many interviews with big accounting firms that came to our campus to interview. And I didn't get a job offer from any of 'em, in fact, several of them actually said something to this effect. You have great grades and you know, you really obviously have excelled in accounting, but we only offer starting positions to students who are gonna go into auditing. And I said well, I like auditing, that'd be okay. And they'd hem haw around and say, well the problem with auditing is it requires a lot of travel, and I said, well I'm perfectly able to travel. And I love to travel. And then they would say, well the problem is, you'd be traveling with men, that's all we have in our office. And I said look, I've just graduated with a degree in accounting, I get along really well with men. All my professors were men and all my colleagues here were men. And then they'd say well, it would be a problem for their wives. And so we can't offer you a position. We're really really sorry and we hope you do well, but. So I ended, you know, it was legal to do that. And when I tell young women these days and more than 50% of them go into accounting are female now, they can't believe that I experienced that kind of discrimination even though I was highly qualified. I ended up starting at work for a state agency. Because state agencies were actually doing affirmative action at that point in time and were anxious to hire women. So I got my start there and stayed there for 10 years, and then decided to go back and get my Master's degree, and while I was getting my Master's degree I decided that I'd really love to teach because I enjoyed college so much that if I were a college professor with a PhD, I could be in school all the time and they'd pay me.
- [Kelli Levey Reynolds] Turn the tables, that's funny. You have said that you don't set out to be a leader, but it just works out that way because part of it is the amoeba thing that we've talked about, but then--
- [Martha Loudder] Yeah, I think, you know, there are so many types of leadership, and I've been studying leadership a lot because that's one of the things that we're really emphasizing in the business school's strategic plan, making sure that all of our students have those leadership skills. And some people think you can't teach leadership, but I'm not one of them, I think that you can teach a lot of the skills of leadership. And in particular you can give students practice in situations where they have to be leaders.