Mortar Board ─ A Century of Scholars, Chosen for Leadership, United to Serve

Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society has a unique place in the history of higher education and indeed in the history of the United States. Founded in 1918, with inaugural chapters at Cornell University, University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, and Swarthmore College, Mortar Board was the first national organization to honor senior college women. Before women had the right to vote in the United States, Mortar Board members were leading their society to prominence across the country. In a real sense, Mortar Board grew up with the US higher education system and grew in step with women’s emergence as recognized leaders nationally. As a result, the history of Mortar Board members and their accomplishments provides readers with a unique window into women’s issues on campuses during the twentieth century, the importance of college student organizations to the quality of student life, and the effect of world events on American college students. Accepting men into its ranks since 1975, Mortar Board has grown into a comprehensive national college senior honor society comprised of students who exemplify Mortar Board’s founding Ideals of scholarship, leadership, and service. In preparation for its centennial, volunteers poured over fifty thousand photos, memos, and files to prepare its first-ever history. The result is a beautifully accurate, sometimes humorous, and always enlightening portrayal of college life in the United States over the last one hundred years.

Virginia N. Gordon, PhD, is assistant dean emerita and associate professor at The Ohio State University. A critical force behind the nation’s growth in academic advising, Gordon has written fifty books, monographs, book chapters, and journal articles on career counseling, advising administration, advising undecided college students, and advisor training. She is past president of the National Academic Advising Association, and the founder and first director of the National Clearinghouse on Academic Advising. She was selected to Mortar Board in 1948 at The Ohio State University. Jane A. Hamblin, JD, CAE, COA, is the executive director of Mortar Board, Inc. and the Mortar Board National Foundation, and editor-in-chief of the Mortar Board Forum. She has played senior student affairs roles at Purdue University and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and has been an instructor at Trinity University and Purdue. Before coming to Mortar Board in 2009, she had been a senior leader at three Washington, DC-based higher education associations. She was selected to Mortar Board in 1973 at Purdue University. Susan R. Komives, EdD, an internationally known scholar and observer of leadership development, is professor emerita at the University of Maryland. Executive editor of the inaugural New Directions in Student Leadership series, she has authored or edited a dozen books on leadership and student affairs. She is past president of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education and the American College Personnel Association, and she served two colleges as vice president. She was selected to Mortar Board in 1967 by the Torchbearer chapter at Florida State University.