Alumna Shirley Dow Stekel, BA ’58, MA ’61  came back to visit the Physics department on September 29.  Prof. Stekel is retired from the Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater  and visited with her husband Frank and daughter and son-in-law. After her first year classes, she was the only woman in her math and physics classes and remembers walking into the old Men’s gym for mass exams and feeling very alone. She says  “I just liked physics and math, and wanted to see how far I could go with it. But another very important part of feeling comfortable on campus were my friends at Winston House. There were 30 -35 women who lived and worked together there. Most quarters, I had a class with someone from the House. German, American Literature, Music Appreciation, etc. provided enough credits for a BA.” She notes that she had room for extra courses because she was not required to take ROTC.

She went on to get her Masters in Physics at OSU before moving on to faculty positions in Washington and Michigan and finally an Assistant Professorship at Whitewater with a sabbatical break at the Indiana Synchrotron facility.  During her visit to OSU, she visited the Minot and Lee labs and sat in on a 212 studio.  She had instituted similar group engagement methods at Whitewater two decades ago, inspired by the way Botany had been taught at OSU when she was here. She says Weniger is both the same and different from when it first opened, although Winston House has been replaced by the oceanography building. She has been a long term supporter of Physics at OSU and we hope that we still provide the same inspiring experience that she had here 55 years ago.