40 years of women at Downing
40 years of women at Downing
In 2020 Downing marked the 40th anniversary of the admission of female students to the College. We have acknowledged and celebrated Downing women past, present and future through a series of events, activities and communications.
Message from the Master
Master of Downing, Alan Bookbinder, says, "In October 1980, 24 women, our first cohort of female students, matriculated at Downing. They joined a community of just over 300 men and one woman Fellow. 40 years on we are celebrating the achievements of these 24 pioneers and all the Downing women who have followed them. The College was a late starter in admitting women, but we have made up for lost time to establish ourselves firmly as a place of welcome, diversity, and inclusion for all.”
"In those first couple of years we were starting everything from scratch. By the third year, people had settled down and got used to seeing women."
Fiona Kenshole (1980 English)
Women at Downing: Hidden histories
There have always been women living and working at Downing College. In addition to Masters’ wives and their children, Downing has also been the home to the families of Professors and staff, many of whom lived around the Domus throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In October 1980, 24 women, our first cohort of female students, matriculated at Downing. 40 years on we are celebrating the achievements of these 24 pioneers and all the Downing women who have followed them.
Message from the Master, Alan Bookbinder
We Are Here: Women in Art at Cambridge Colleges
Forty years after Downing College accepted its first female undergraduates, this exhibition told the story of women in college art over the twentieth century, through works that help transform colleges into more inclusive spaces for women and interrogate what it is to be a woman at the University of Cambridge.