Female Firsts: The 1990s & Women’s Leadership at Notre Dame

By Molly Swartz ’26

Before the American media and public ever labeled 1992 the “Year of the Woman,” the University of Notre Dame had already declared its own. In 1990, amid rising female enrollment, concerns about sexual assault, and campus-wide debates over gender equity, Notre Dame dedicated the 1990-91 academic year to addressing some of the issues female students faced and promoting the representation of women in academic lectures and the arts on campus. Two years later, voters acted on feminist momentum behind figures like Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton and elected a historic number of women to Congress. Notre Dame’s earlier efforts show that advancements for women in the 1990s had already been unfolding on a smaller scale before arriving in Washington, D.C. 

The end of the 20th century brought significant changes for women across the United States as traditional family roles, professional opportunities, and institutional barriers began to shift. It became increasingly common for women to attend college and pursue white-collar jobs. In the 1990s, an increasing number of women entered new arenas of leadership in politics, business, and higher education. Yet, these spaces remained male-dominated due to decades of exclusionary practices. Within this national movement toward gender equity, women’s representation in Catholic higher education leadership was expanded, but since the Catholic Church continues to have gendered roles for both religious and lay people, women leaders at Catholic institutions faced additional challenges compared to their peers in secular industries. While the term “glass ceiling” is used to describe the barriers women face in the workplace, the term “stained-glass ceiling” was coined over two decades ago to describe these additional difficulties (1). The University of Notre Dame, a symbol of Catholic tradition, remains one of the few Catholic universities to still require an ordained priest from the sponsoring congregation to hold the presidency, so women at the university, holding administrative roles for the first time, found different ways to advocate for the campus community and encourage their female colleagues. Along with the increase in women’s leadership in roles requiring a high degree of education and authority in the 1990s, the University of Notre Dame mirrored this progress in the gradual rise of women in administrative and academic roles, challenging both secular and religious barriers within a historically male-dominated industry. This opened doors for administrators and professors such as Patricia O’Hara, Carolyn Woo, Ann Firth, and Jill Godmilow to make impacts on the university and set precedents for female leaders who came after them.

Each of these four women provide a unique perspective to female leadership and trailblazing because of aspects of their identity. O’Hara was a single woman who never had children, meaning that she was able to dedicate more parts of herself fully to Notre Dame. While she served in demanding roles, she did not have demanding voices at home competing for her attention. Woo assumed her role as dean after working at Purdue University, a secular school, and later served as the president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Unlike the other administrators examined, she understood the broader world of higher education deeply and encountered more leadership struggles associated with the Catholic Church outside of education. While Woo is also a mother to two sons, Firth exemplifies a leader who thrived at Notre Dame while still prioritizing her family and motherhood. As a mother of five who had all of her children while at Notre Dame, she was forced to discover how the University could help her have a full career and home life. Lastly, Goodmilow, the only faculty member discussed, also provides a unique angle as a non-Catholic woman. Her friends report that she was in good standing with the administration but say she blamed her faith, or lack thereof, for why she never got an endowed chair at the University. Situated in the broader context of 1990s feminism and Catholic society, these perspectives reveal how it took women with diverse experiences to break time-honored precedents.

In the 1990s, the rise of third-wave feminism challenged traditional gender roles and encouraged women to speak up for themselves. In 1991, Anita Hill appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify against Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee. She described the sexual harassment she experienced while working under him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but Thomas was still confirmed to the Court. These hearings drew the attention of women nationally and caused them to question why there were not more women in the Senate advocating for Hill, and some women were even pushed to run for office after watching the proceedings (2). During the national elections in 1992, the media headlines coined the term “Year of the Woman” after the number of women elected to Congress significantly increased. In the House of Representatives, the number of congresswomen increased from thirty to forty-eight, and the number of female Senators increased from two to six after the 1992 elections. Although women remained a minority in Congress, this significant progress pushed women to make up over 10 percent of the federal legislative branch. Bill Clinton was also elected president in 1992, and his wife, Hillary Clinton, drove his popularity among female voters as she continued her career as a law partner throughout her time as First Lady of Arkansas. For many women, Hillary symbolized expanded female influence inside and outside of the home, as she pursued her own career and supported her husband’s political ambitions. This also made the Democratic Party more appealing to women in the 1990s (3).

Women in business, specifically the number of Fortune 500 CEOs, saw much slower progress in this decade but achieved a few milestones. Jill Barad became only the fourth female CEO of a Fortune 500 company in history in 1997 when she took the role at Mattel, proving that women were still barely cracking top leadership roles in business by the end of the decade. Andrea Jung of Avon became the first female East Asian top 500 CEO in 1999, making her the first non-white woman to hold one of these positions (4). Entrepreneurship provided greater opportunities for women in the 1990s compared to traditional C-suite positions. Well-known financial institutions started initiatives to support female-owned startups, with Wells Fargo leading the way by launching a $10 billion loan fund by 1996. Female celebrities, such as Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey, also grew their businesses in the 1990s and inspired other women to follow suit (5). Even if it was small, women in the federal government saw an increase in representation in the 1990s, but businesswomen did not see the same changes until the 2000s, unless it was within their own startups.

Despite the progress seen across society in the 1990s, the Catholic Church continued to lag behind American ideals of gender equality. The Church and Catholic universities are highly gendered institutions because of their specific expectations for both ordained and lay men and women. The expectations fall into five distinct categories: “division of labor, behavior, space, and power; construction of symbols and images to support divisions; gendered social interactions; gendered identity expectations; and gendered constructs in organizational decision-making” (6). The teachings of the Church fit within these five categories to form a structure that defines leadership, authority, and participation for both sexes. Within this framework, men, particularly ordained religious, occupy positions of spiritual and organizational power, and women are often encouraged to emphasize service, care, and moral guidance rather than governance. These gendered hierarchies are reinforced through cultural traditions and religious doctrine, such as encouraging motherhood by condemning birth control or explicitly excluding women from the priesthood. As a result, women in Catholic colleges and universities must navigate an environment where authority and legitimacy are historically linked to male identity and religious ordination. However, many women leaders have responded to these constraints with resilience and creativity. They draw on the Church’s mission of service, education, and social justice to assert their leadership and redefine what it means to guide within a faith-based system, and drawing on the mission of education, women at Notre Dame have used these characteristics to carve out spheres of influence in what could have otherwise been a completely male-dominated space.

Although Notre Dame does not and will not have a female president for the foreseeable future, the experiences of women who have served as presidents of other Catholic colleges and universities still offer practical models for how women at Notre Dame could expand their influence within a male-dominated system. Rather than challenging Church authority head-on, these women focused on gaining credibility through action. For example, several presidents deliberately immersed themselves in their university or college’s archives and founding documents so they could defend their decisions publicly (7). With a deep understanding of the history of the Church and their institution, they could defend increasing diversity or protecting student free speech as consistent with Catholic tradition rather than challenging it. Other female presidents strengthened their authority by building strong relationships with their boards of trustees and by sharing financial updates and their plans for the school, highlighting their decisiveness and administrative competence. Some struggling universities hired these women, and by stabilizing their institutions through difficult budget decisions and restructuring, female presidents proved their leadership and gained trust in their communities. They also used their positions to quietly change culture by hiring more diverse faculty, expanding support for low-income and undocumented students, and mentoring younger women administrators, creating pipelines for future leaders. The female presidents who shared their tactics for leadership in Catholic spaces chose to keep their identities private, so they could speak most authentically. These concrete strategies of historical fluency, results-based actions, relationship-building, and mentorship were also used by early female pioneers at Notre Dame to expand their power and gain respect from the Catholic male leadership without needing to formally hold ordained authority (8).

One of these pioneers at Notre Dame was Isabel Charles. Prior to this decade of increased female representation in Notre Dame’s top leadership, women were not represented among the leaders of Notre Dame for the first 130 years of its history. Her rise in leadership came shortly after the admission of female undergraduate students in 1972. She graduated from Notre Dame in 1965 with her Ph.D. in English and happily returned to South Bend in 1973 when she was offered the position of assistant dean of the College of Arts and Letters and an associate professor of English. She was named the full dean of the college in 1976 and was a key figure in recruiting more female faculty members and students to the university. In 1982, Charles became assistant provost and director of international studies, where she focused on the expansion of international programs for study abroad and service opportunities. During her time as director of international studies, she increased the number of study abroad programs from six to 16 (9). Despite Charles’ pioneering efforts and success in her roles, her story is often forgotten. The role of dean was heavily administrative during her tenure and was typically held for shorter periods of time. Some view Carolyn Woo as the first female dean of an academic college in 1997. In comparison, the first male dean of an academic college is often regarded as William J. Hoynes, dean of law, starting in 1883 (10). The role of dean became more official around 1920 when university leadership was decentralized and heads of academic colleges and subjects were selected, all of them being men (11). Charles’ evaporating legacy shows that Notre Dame may not have received a female administrator as well in the 1970s as in the 1990s.

Similar to Charles, the Sisters of the Holy Cross helped lay essential groundwork for women’s leadership on campus, long before women were admitted as undergraduate students to Notre Dame. From 1843 to 1958, these women supported the University as teachers, administrators, nurses, and domestic laborers, often without recognition. One such woman was Sister Aloysius, whose intellectual ability made Fr. Cavanaugh remark that she could be president of the United States. Mother Ascension and Mother Angela, two women who dedicated their religious lives to Notre Dame, helped shape the University’s mission, and they were known together as Fr. Sorin’s two hands. The sisters also fought for leadership and authority within a male-dominated Catholic space, similarly to the modern-day women, and they saw some success with the election of Mother Augusta Anderson as their first American superior general and the recognition of their independence by the Vatican (12). After leaving in 1958, the legacy of the Sisters of the Holy Cross is not remembered as vividly as it should be. They modeled resilience, administrative authority, and moral leadership despite inconsistent support from their partners at Notre Dame. Their years of dedication made possible the admittance of female students and the success of female administrators and faculty in the 1990s.

After most of Charles and the Sisters of the Holy Cross’ work was done, Rev. Edward “Monk” Malloy, C.S.C., was inaugurated as the University of Notre Dame’s 16th president in 1987, and he served in this role all throughout the 1990s until 2005. His presidency built upon Fr. Hesburgh’s, as he continued to prioritize growing Notre Dame’s global reputation. Before taking office, Malloy appointed four task forces to evaluate “important areas of University life” (13). From the task forces’ findings, Malloy dedicated the next several years to particular concerns afflicting Notre Dame’s community. 1990 to 1991 was designated as “The Year of Women” to address debates of female enrollment numbers and increases in sexual assault. By 1990, the Notre Dame student body was 37 percent women, and female faculty made up only 18 percent. Malloy established a committee during the Year of Women to study whether female enrollment numbers should increase incrementally or if the university should immediately institute a gender-blind admissions policy (14). Beginning with the 1992-93 academic year, the University did adopt a gender-blind admissions policy, which resulted in a seven percent increase in female enrollment the first year. The Year of Women also involved starting programs to reduce campus safety concerns for women, including establishing SafeWalk and Weekend Wheels to safely get students back to their residence halls (15).

Malloy also took steps outside of this designated year to create an environment that encouraged the incorporation of women across its academic and administrative ranks. A main goal of his first five years in the role was to increase the diversity and reputation of Notre Dame’s community, and by the early 1990s, the number of women on the faculty and in the student body increased, reflecting Malloy’s view that inclusion was essential to the university’s mission (16). In 1991, Malloy again put together four committees to help him develop a comprehensive plan for the university as it approached the new century. Titled Colloquy for the Year 2000, the findings of these committees explicitly directed the university to expand its faculty in the next 10 years with attention to “the university’s need for additional Catholics, women, and ethnic minorities” (17). This commitment to gender equity in hiring paved the way for the increased consideration of women for administration positions as well as faculty positions. Also under President Malloy’s leadership, the new building for the business school was constructed in 1995, and it was renamed the Mendoza College of Business in 2000 after a generous $35 million donation from Tom and Kathy Mendoza (18). This physical construction and expansion led the way for the first female dean of the business school to be named in 1997.

One of the women that Malloy’s presidency and initiatives created opportunities for was Patricia “Patty” O’Hara, who emerged as one of the most influential figures at Notre Dame in the 1990s. After attending Santa Clara for her undergraduate education, O’Hara graduated Notre Dame Law School summa cum laude and first in her class in 1974. She returned to the law school faculty in 1981, where she earned tenure in 1987 and became a full professor in 1990. Also in 1990, she was named the first female vice president of student affairs, following a long string of ordained priests (19). Although there were female administrators before O’Hara, multiple Notre Dame publications labeled her “the first woman in the history of Notre Dame to hold an administrative position” (20). The ability to forget previous figures, like Isabel Charles, is disheartening but also shows the significance of her nomination as vice president and that the campus community may have become more receptive to female leadership than in previous years.

O’Hara was revered as a brilliant woman and administrator who was determined to make Notre Dame a better institution and to succeed in her role. Her colleague in the law school, Professor William Kelley, discussed her profound impact on the University, saying, “She has unfailingly been of Christian discipleship…she’s been a loving and supportive colleague and mentor to generations of faculty and students, and a wise and humble counselor to so many on matters big and small…Patty O’Hara has been a constant role model of faithful and selfless service to the Church and especially to Our Lady’s University” (21). Despite this, her job was not an easy one, as she was responsible for making difficult decisions impacting the student body, frequently opening her up to critiques. Especially since it was unusual to have anyone other than a priest in this role, let alone a woman, O’Hara’s decisiveness and intelligence gained her credibility and respect. A Scholastic article from 1990 shows this assertiveness and her lack of fear about being one of the first, with her saying, “I never think of trying to do anything ‘as a woman.’ I just concentrate on doing a good job. I don’t feel that it is a male or female issue. I just do the job to the best of my ability and hopefully people will see a good job being done, not a woman doing a job” (22).

O’Hara was thrust into the spotlight in 1995 with Notre Dame’s most visible controversy of the decade. The debate was centered on the status of Gays and Lesbians of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College (GLND/SMC) after the group was barred from meeting and advertising in university facilities because it lacked official recognition from the Office of Student Affairs. Widespread student concern followed, including a peaceful demonstration by more than 300 students, faculty, and staff. O’Hara became the primary administrative voice in the dispute (23). In an infamous letter written on March 6, 1995, to the Campus Life Council after they called for the recognition of the group, O’Hara stated, “We value our gay and lesbian students, as we value all students who are members of this community. We want the University to be a safe and inclusive environment in which every student can pursue the educational endeavor to which we are all committed—free from harassment of any kind.” She also mentions that GLND/SMC was rejected official status because of its “value-neutral approach toward a variety of ways in which gays and lesbians may live out their orientation [which is not] consistent with official Church teaching” (24). She framed the issue not simply as an administrative duty but as a matter of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, stressing that recognized student organizations were expected to reflect the university’s theological commitments, especially regarding sexuality. Her handling of the controversy reveals the unique pressures faced by lay Catholic women operating under the “stained-glass ceiling.” Unlike ordained male administrators, who could rely on their authority bestowed by the Catholic Church, O’Hara was required to establish her credibility solely through her professionalism and visible loyalty to Catholic teaching. If her decision on GLND/SMC was perceived as going against the Church, she would risk both her authority and her position. By grounding her response in institutional mission and Church doctrine while trying to affirm the dignity of LGBTQ students, O’Hara navigated a narrow and gendered path that was not required of her ordained predecessors. Her leadership demonstrates how the “stained-glass ceiling” does not simply block women from power, but it also changes how they must exercise power once they attain it.

O’Hara’s 1995 letter did not conclude the GLND/SMC controversy, but it did start a formal process within Student Affairs. She appointed a committee made up of faculty, staff, and student leaders to discuss how Notre Dame could better support LGBTQ students while remaining faithful to Catholic teaching. The committee released its findings on February 29, 1996, outlining twelve recommendations that sought to reduce harassment and improve the student experience for LGBTQ students. Some of the points included training for assistant rectors and resident assistants, ongoing education and resources for hall rectors, creating a support group for gay and lesbian students, and encouraging the University to consider adding sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. This committee and its findings did not grant GLND/SMC official status with Student Affairs, but it showed baby steps toward open inclusivity for LGBTQ students and showed compromise within the limits of Catholic teachings (25).

Despite how she was portrayed by this event, O’Hara was still remembered fondly by many students from the 1990s. She consistently advocated for female students as their enrollment numbers increased during the decade, and she led the push to convert Pangborn and Cavanaugh Halls from male dorms into female residences and to build four new dorms on West Quad to house the growing numbers. With Malloy, she also worked to increase the percentage of minority students from seven percent to 15 percent and to provide these students with the resources and support they needed to thrive at Notre Dame. Despite the challenges she faced in her role, she reflected pleasantly on her time in Student Affairs, saying, “On far more occasions than I will ever be able to count, I have seen our students demonstrate over and over again their intelligence, their deep commitment to faith, and the obligation they feel to share their gifts with those in need, and my most enduring memory of my time in Student Affairs will be the goodness of our students” (26). Since she was leaving her role when she said this, she almost certainly was looking at her tenure through rose-colored glasses. However, she immediately started another role at the University serving students, so the underlying emotions must have held true. Upon accepting the role of dean of the Law School in 1999, she also received enthusiastic support, which was no small feat considering that she was following the longest-serving law school dean in the United States, Dean Link. Since she continued to teach law classes during her time in Student Affairs, she was already well respected in the law school community (27).

From 1997 to 2011, Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo, a peer and close friend of O’Hara’s, served as the Dean of the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, guiding the college through a period of major growth and transformation with the adoption of the internet and technology in education. As a Ph.D. in strategy and a deeply faithful woman, her deanship was marked by her commitment to rigorous academics and a dedication to the university’s Catholic mission. Under Woo’s leadership, the Mendoza College of Business rose to national prominence while always prioritizing its Catholic identity. She emphasized that Mendoza’s success was built on staying true to its mission and not folding to trends in education or society. “We never sacrificed our Catholic identity for rankings,” she reflected, asserting that the college’s rise came “on the commitment to be a Catholic university, not to be number one” (28). As one of the few women in senior administrative positions related to the colleges during her time, Woo’s leadership experience provides a compelling look at the culture of Notre Dame’s academic colleges and their receptiveness to female leadership in the 1990s.

Woo described her time as dean as one where gender did not significantly hinder her work, mostly due to her self-assured leadership style. With what she termed a “strong personality,” Woo never hesitated to speak up or advocate for herself (29). While Notre Dame lacked formal mentoring structures for women administrators at the time, which many universities had, she never shied away from asserting herself in leadership settings. Rather than facing direct opposition, she noted the relative scarcity of female peers as the main difference in her experience, describing her environment as “not adversarial, just lonely” (30). Among the few women in senior leadership was Patty O’Hara, whom Woo regarded as both a peer and an ally. Because Woo had few female mentors, she made intentional efforts to mentor female faculty and staff within Mendoza to hopefully influence the future generations of female leaders within her college and in the greater business world.

Woo’s leadership was tested by several pivotal moments that required her to challenge existing norms at Notre Dame and advocate for fairness. At the beginning of the second year of her deanship, she learned that another dean who started at the same time as she was granted a sabbatical, while she had not been given the same offer. She confronted Nathan Hatch, the provost at the time, and was told it was because she had not asked for one. Woo, characteristically advocating for herself, responded that such benefits should not depend on who requests them. She declined the resulting sabbatical offer and instead negotiated to have a salary increase redirected into Mendoza’s budget to benefit the college as a whole, demonstrating her strategic expertise.

Another defining moment came when she felt that Mendoza was underfunded when she became dean in 1997. Instead of just asking the university for money, she developed new initiatives to create sustainable growth for the college. Her initiatives included expanding graduate enrollment and developing new master’s programs to bring in more tuition dollars. She negotiated with Notre Dame that they would get a certain percentage of revenues from the graduate tuition if Mendoza could keep the rest. Woo often had to defend the business school’s values within the broader academic community, which at times depicted business education as fostering greed. In reality, she was developing plans such as this one behind the scenes to keep Mendoza financially afloat early on. Publicly, she countered such misconceptions by reframing business as “a force for good” (31).

Woo’s later career as president and CEO of CRS deepened her understanding of leadership within historically patriarchal systems. Working within the Catholic Church’s global networks with CRS, she often navigated male-dominated environments such as offices in the Vatican or fieldwork in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where the decision-makers were exclusively men. She observed that many male leaders in these spaces, particularly ordained religious, were unaccustomed to collaborating with women in authority, not out of hostility but unfamiliarity. Over time, she learned to “give them space” and let respect develop through her actions (32).

Woo’s experience informed her later scholarship and authorship, including her 2022 book Rising: Learning from Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries, which explores how women can lead by recognizing the unique opportunities to serve and influence that exist within the Church. In the book, Woo challenges the notion that women’s leadership in the Catholic Church is a rarity and instead argues that women hold many leadership roles across the Church in local communities and in national organizations. She identifies four misconceptions that block women from pursuing leadership: few available opportunities, lack of advocacy from Church leaders, lay people’s subordination to the ordained, and the perception that women are not well-suited for roles in Catholic spaces. Woo also tells the story of sixteen women she has crossed paths with throughout her career who give their perspectives on leadership, with many of them citing mentorship as a key factor in their success. She frames leadership in Catholic ministry not as administrative but as a part of identity and vocation, reminding readers that “leadership can occur at every level of organizations and in every function. Titles are not necessary for the exercise of leadership” (33). Woo is one of the few authors on the subject of female leadership in Catholic institutions and ministries, but many of the themes are close to those discussed in the “Breaking the Stained-Glass Ceiling” study, showing that they truly are common experiences for women in this space. 

Now that Woo is retired from higher education and administration for humanitarian organizations, she remains active in service work, particularly in the local South Bend community. She volunteers with programs such as Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and local initiatives for the homeless in South Bend. Her retirement years show her lifelong dedication to the idea that leadership is less about ambition and more about honoring God through one’s gifts. Reflecting on her career, Woo emphasized that success should never be the end goal. “The key is not how do I succeed,” she said, “but how do I honor God?” (34). For her, that meant using her talents responsibly, leading with conviction, and serving others to shape both her leadership at Notre Dame and her influence beyond it.

Ann Firth, current vice president and chief of staff to President Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., also started her career at Notre Dame in the 1990s along with O’Hara and Woo. Firth is a double Domer, having earned both her undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Notre Dame. After graduating, she moved to Chicago to practice law, but she knew that she wanted to do something else with her degree. In 1985, she returned to South Bend with her husband, a fellow Notre Dame law graduate, to settle in the area. Since she was also looking for a new professional direction, Firth reached out to university contacts and was soon offered a role by John Goldrick, then Associate Vice President for Residential Life. At just 25 years old, she became the inaugural Director of the Office of Residential Life, which was at the time the Office of Community Standards. In the seven years she held this role, she was the primary hearing officer for student conduct, handling cases that ranged from minor infractions to serious offenses such as sexual assault. Since she was the first person to ever hold this role, Firth built a structured system for student discipline and built a team resembling a proper judicial office. She drew heavily on her legal background to develop fair and consistent policies, establishing a foundation for what would become today’s robust and principled student conduct process at Notre Dame.

As Director of Residential Life, Firth and her husband began raising their family of five children. By the time she was expecting her third child, she chose to step away temporarily from full-time work to seek greater flexibility to be at home with her children. After a year at home, she returned in a part-time “special projects” role under Vice President for Student Affairs Patty O’Hara. For more than a decade, Firth worked two days a week, focusing on policy development, strategic planning, and writing. The arrangement was unusual for the era, as remote and flexible work options were not yet common. Notre Dame leadership supported her decision to balance family and professional responsibilities, which was an important precedent for other women in the university’s administration who were working mothers juggling family responsibilities. She recalls feeling supported by the University during these years, as she was affirmed in her contributions to Notre Dame and given the flexibility as her family grew. When she felt ready to increase her workload again, her bosses listened, and she was named Associate Vice President for Student Affairs. She spent one year away from Student Affairs during this time to follow O’Hara to the law school, but she quickly returned as she loved the work she did with Title IX initiatives and the alcohol and drug education.

Outside of higher education, women in the 1990s increasingly were forced to make difficult decisions between personal and professional obligations, making Firth’s arrangement and subsequent success even more rare. Dubbed the “mommy track,” the slower career path many women find themselves on after starting a family was increasingly acknowledged in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. An article titled “Mommy tracks.” published in Newsweek in 1991, discussed the disconnect between firms offering maternity perks and female employees fearing taking advantage of them. One woman from the article agreed, saying, “A company may pay lip service to offering alternatives for working mothers, but ‘asking [for them] can be the kiss of death’” (35). The implementation of family benefits ultimately comes down to individual companies and institutions, as there are few government regulations other than 12 weeks of unpaid leave for mothers. Firth’s experience shows that Notre Dame offered these benefits, at least for women who were willing to advocate for them, without delaying a mother’s career progression. 

While working with O’Hara, Firth was also exposed to the GLND/SMC controversy, and she was named the chair of the Standing Committee on Gay and Lesbian Student Needs that was established for the 1996-1997 academic year. In a letter to O’Hara at the end of the 1997 spring semester that was eventually published in The Observer, Firth summarizes the impact she made with the committee, including campus-wide events, workshops for resident assistants during hall staff orientation, a home page for students, and a campaign to make gay and lesbian students feel at home on Notre Dame’s campus. She ends the letter acknowledging that “there is still much work to be done in terms of making Notre Dame a place which welcomes its gay and lesbian students,” but the efforts and her optimistic tone improved Student Affairs’ reputation in the eyes of the student body (36).

Even though Firth was given the space to work part-time and worked under incredible leaders, she recognized that she needed to work twice as hard to prove that women could excel in these roles and still balance motherhood. Her determination to prove this opened opportunities for working mothers who followed her, as she set a positive example for what part-time work in administration could look like (37). As the daughter of German immigrants, she was always taught to advocate for herself, with her mom telling her, “Pursue your education, be everything you can be.” This was a crucial skill needed for her success as a minority in the University’s administration, and she used these skills when she spoke up for a promotion she believed she deserved and was ultimately given as a result. As previously mentioned, one of the senior administrators who took this chance on Firth was O’Hara, Firth’s former law school professor. O’Hara was one of the few female leaders when Firth arrived, and she was not only a woman but a lawwoman serving in a role that was traditionally reserved for a Holy Cross priest. Beyond O’Hara, Carol Ann Mooney was a mentor to Firth, who served as an associate provost and later the 11th president of Saint Mary’s College. 

After 25 years in Student Affairs, she moved to the President’s office when Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., invited her to temporarily fill in while a few people in the office were on medical leave. In 2011, she was officially named associate vice president and counselor to the president and eventually chief of staff in 2012. In this role, she is responsible for the management of the office, liaison to the Board of Trustees, and advising the president. Most recently, Firth has been one of the very few administrators to meet with Pope Leo XIV, representing the University of Notre Dame to the global Catholic Church (38).

In addition to these administrators, female professors impacted the university’s culture in the 1990s. One notable faculty member was Jill Godmilow, who arrived at Notre Dame’s Film, Television and Theatre (FTT) Department in 1992. She passed away in September 2025, and since her death, friends and colleagues have collected stories on the powerful and disruptive impact she had on Notre Dame. Her arrival was remembered as bringing “the force of a resistance fighter and the curiosity of a New Yorker suddenly in the hinterlands” (39). She was one of the only faculty members to have only her bachelor’s degree, since she was an artist rather than an academic. Godmilow reshaped the student experience for FTT majors by making filmmaking an intellectually rigorous and socially conscious pursuit. She converted the department’s top-floor loft in O’Shaughnessy Hall, home to her office, into a shared workspace with editing tables, props, and her classroom. This space became a hub for mentorship and collaboration, which was the heart of her teaching philosophy. She also required students to challenge conventional practices and to rethink how film can be an act of resistance and have a political purpose. She also brought accomplished filmmakers to campus for lectures and expanded the Student Film Festival to give students the opportunity to display serious works (40).

Importantly, Godmilow did not just change the culture in her classroom, but she also advocated for fellow faculty and did not shy away from controversy on campus. She founded an organization for women at the University titled WATCH, in which she helped create a guide for female faculty with information about promotions, tenure tracks, campus culture, and more. She also founded the Notre Dame Progressive Faculty/Staff Alliance (NDPFSA) as a space for University employees to “share, activate, and actualize their progressive political beliefs” (41). As a colleague of Godmilow recalls, the year that a group of women made the boldest moves within these groups, they secured 47 percent raises. She also gained attention on campus when she protested against the presence of crucifixes in all Notre Dame classrooms but admired the Catholic faith and tradition (42). She may have gotten this idea from other Catholic universities, such as Georgetown or Fordham, which slowly began removing crucifixes in the 1980s and 1990s to “appeal more widely with fewer overt signs of any particular religion” (43). Her friends also remember her as “a hardcore feminist who adored men,” showing her multifaceted personality and ability to fight for female equality in a deeply Catholic institution like Notre Dame (44). 

Godmilow’s method of enacting change at Notre Dame stands in sharp contrast to the leadership strategies of O’Hara, Woo, and Firth. However, all four women still faced the unique barriers that exist within Catholic spaces and had to find ways, still true to themselves, to navigate them. While these three administrators worked largely with the existing structures at Notre Dame to expand women’s authority, Godmilow thought of herself as an activist, not afraid of using protest and resistance to make her point. As a progressive filmmaker and academic, her authority did not come from Catholic identity but from her art and the stories her art told. This difference highlights two pathways women used to carve out spaces at Notre Dame. Together, they reveal that women’s authority at Notre Dame in the 1990s was negotiated rather than given and that it depended on a careful balance of loyalty and resistance.

The sacrifices and pioneering actions of women like O’Hara, Woo, Firth, and Godmilow in the 1990s certainly paved the way for women at Notre Dame who followed them. Although these women had each other as peers, particularly the three administrators, they had limited examples of women who had gone before them to offer advice and advocate for them within the university. Ann Firth identifies the importance of mentorship and the responsibility now entrusted to her, and she expressed this during her interview for Notre Dame’s 2024 Woman Lead: “I think one of the obligations of leadership is to be a generous mentor and advocate for others, especially for those who are finding their path” (45). She benefited from working under Patty O’Hara in the Division of Student Affairs and in the Law School, so she hopes to pass this support along to the next generation of female leaders.

The work and achievements of these women, and others, at Notre Dame in the 1990s laid the foundation for the next generation of “firsts” at Notre Dame, though room for progress remains. Since Carolyn Woo helmed Mendoza, four colleges have been led by women. In 2013, Laura Carlson was named the dean of the Graduate School, and she was followed by Mary Galvin as the dean of the College of Science in 2015. Five years later, in 2020, Patricia Culligan became the first female dean of the College of Engineering, and in 2024, Mary Gallagher was named Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs. But progress comes slowly and, at times, unevenly. Culligan and Gallagher both still serve in their roles today but are certainly the minority with only 2 of 8 academic colleges being led by women in the 2025-2026 academic year. Notre Dame also named their first female provost in 2020, Marie Lynn Miranda, but she stepped down at the end of 2021 after a difficult year-and-a-half dominated by the pandemic, which drastically impacted higher education (46). Ultimately, although barriers remain for leading women in Catholic higher education, the pioneering work of several visionary female leaders at Notre Dame in the 1990s remains blueprint and footing for future and aspiring women leaders at Notre Dame.

Molly Swartz is a finance and American studies major with a minor in real estate. Her essay was originally written for Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings’ American studies course “Notre Dame and America.”

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8. Ibid.
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11. Ibid., 222.
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13. Ibid., 524.
14. Ibid., 529-30.
15. Ibid., 539-40.
16. Ibid., 547.
17. Ibid., 550.
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26. Mattingly, Ann Marie. “O’Hara to Leave Student Affairs, Head Law School.” The Observer, May 14, 1999.
27. Ibid.
28. Carolyn Woo in discussion with Molly Swartz, October 17, 2025.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Woo, Carolyn Y. Rising: Learning from Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2022.
34. Ibid.
35. Miller, Annetta, and Dody Tsiantar. “Mommy Tracks.” Newsweek 118, no. 22, November 1991.
36. Firth, Ann. “Report of the Standing Committee on Gay and Lesbian Student Needs to Professor Patricia A. O’Hara, Vice President for Student Affairs.” The Observer, April 25, 1997.
37. Ann Firth in discussion with Molly Swartz, October 27, 2025.
38. Ibid.
39. “Remembering FTT Professor Emerita Jill Godmilow.” The Spotlight. https://t.e2ma.net/message/rhwy9r/fcsiq1ud.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Fuchs, Marek. “Religion Journal; At One Catholic College, Crucifixes Make a Comeback.” The New York Times, June 12, 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/nyregion/religion-journal-at-one-catholic-college-crucifixes-make-a-comeback.html.
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45. “Ann Firth.” Women Lead 2024, n.d. https://womenlead2024.nd.edu/ann-firth/.
46. “Selected Women’s Firsts at Notre Dame.” 50 Golden Years, May 13, 2022. https://50goldenyears.nd.edu/news-and-features/selected-womens-firsts-of-notre-dame/.