VCU news

By Elinor Frisa

Virginia Commonwealth University has a long and complex history, with its earliest origins dating back to 1838. Along the way, many women have made their mark on the institution, and their influence can still be seen today, reflected in VCU’s core values, academic programs, scholarships, buildings named in their honor and more.

Here are just a few of the many notable women in VCU’s rich history.

Sadie Heath Cabaniss

Until the early 20th century, nurses in Virginia did not need to be registered before they could practice. That changed in 1903 thanks to a law that Petersburg-born nurse-educator Sadie Heath Cabaniss (1865-1921) helped draft.

Educated at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Cabaniss was recruited by Old Dominion Hospital in Richmond to supervise its operating room, and six months later, in 1895, the hospital asked her to organize a training school for nursing. That school became one of the early predecessors of the VCU School of Nursing.

Cabaniss was particularly dedicated to public health and caring for the poor, and she inspired her students to volunteer in rest homes, orphanages and similar settings. She left Old Dominion in 1901 to start – with a group of former students – the Nurses Settlement of Richmond, an agency through which nurses cared for patients in their homes. That same year, she helped found, and became the first president of, the Virginia State Association of Nurses.

Cabaniss served a variety of other public health nursing roles throughout the rest of her career in Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. In 2002, she was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame. Today, the VCU School of Nursing is housed in Sadie Heath Cabaniss Hall on the university’s MCV Campus.

More details on her life and the impact she made on the nursing profession can be found on the VCU Libraries website.

Orie Latham Hatcher, Ph.D.

In 1916, when she was nearly 50, educator and agent for social change Orie Latham Hatcher (1868-1946) helped lead the charge to open the Richmond School of Social Economy. The Petersburg native was the head of the Bureau of Vocations for Women, which she had helped found as part of her efforts to help Southern women find meaningful employment.

Hatcher earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Chicago in 1903 and taught at Bryn Mawr College before returning to Richmond to pursue her passion for improving the lives of women through education and work opportunities.

The school opened its doors in 1917 to 30 students, all of them women, and a year later changed its name to the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health. The school eventually became part of the Richmond Professional Institute, which merged with the Medical College of Virginia in 1968 to become VCU. In this way, Hatcher was instrumental in creating the VCU School of Social Work, which is considered the South’s oldest social work school.

Hatcher also helped bring women to MCV: Through the vocational bureau, she pushed for the institution to admit women, which it did in 1918. Aside from her contributions to what is modern VCU, she was involved in many other projects and organizations that pushed for social change for women as well as rural youth, and she was the author of several books.

Read more about her remarkable life on VCU Libraries’ Social Welfare History Project website.

Theresa Pollak

The VCU School of the Arts is one of the top-ranked public art schools in the country. And the woman who helped start it taught countless budding artists at VCU’s predecessor school for more than four decades, leaving an indelible impact on VCUarts and the Richmond arts community.

Theresa Pollak (1899-2002) was born in Richmond, but after earning a chemistry degree at Westhampton College, she studied art in New York City and is credited with bringing modern art to Richmond when she returned to her hometown in 1926.

In 1928, Henry H. Hibbs, who helmed the Richmond Division of the College of William and Mary (which had been the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health and later became RPI), hired Pollak to teach painting and drawing as well as lay the foundation for an art school. Her first class was held in a studio at what is now the Shafer Street Playhouse.

Pollak continued teaching at RPI until 1969, at which point the school had just become VCU. She was an advocate of artistic freedom, and during her many decades of teaching, she continued to mature as an artist. Her work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

One of her many lasting contributions to VCUarts was her development of the Art Foundation Program, which all first-year art students must complete to this day before they move on to their specific disciplines. In 1971, a new arts building was named for Pollak, and it now houses classrooms and faculty offices.

An online exhibit from VCU Libraries provides more about Pollak’s life as well as selected works.

Grace E. Harris, Ph.D.

One of VCU’s most influential women almost didn’t get the chance to make her mark at the university. When Grace E. Harris (1933-2018) applied to RPI’s School of Social Work graduate program in 1954, she was denied admission on the basis of race.

After a stint at Boston University, she returned to VCU, was admitted and earned a Master of Social Work degree in 1960. After earning a master’s and Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Virginia, Harris returned to VCU in 1967, this time as a social work professor and one of the first African-American faculty members hired at RPI.

Thus began a 48-year career at VCU, where Harris became dean of the School of Social Work, provost and vice president for academic affairs for the university and, from 1995 to 1998, acting VCU president. Her promotion to provost in 1993 made her the first Black woman to serve as the chief academic officer at a four-year public university in Virginia. She was the architect of VCU’s first strategic plan and made countless contributions to the VCU community, the Richmond community and beyond.

Her legacy continues at VCU’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, where the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute, which was formed in 1999, helps train and nurture the next generation of leaders. Students on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus also regularly pass through Grace E. Harris Hall, which was rededicated in her name in 2007.

More details about her life and leadership are available on the GEHLI website.