More than ever, women are playing a key role at McGill in all spheres – from academics to astronautics to shaping the University’s future. Here are some of the countless individuals and events that have shaped, challenged, and enriched the University.
2026: Angela Campbell is the first woman to be appointed as the Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic). Tina Piper is appointed as the first female Dean of the Faculty of Law.
2025: A record number of women – 164 – are named to the President’s Student-Athlete Honour Roll.
2024: 11 of 14 faculties are led by women. Cynthia Price Verreault, BCom’82, is appointed as McGill’s first Deputy Chancellor.
2022: Professor Celeste Pedri-Spade is named inaugural Associate Provost of Indigenous Initiatives.
2020: Jenni Sidey-Gibbons, BEng’11, joins the Canadian astronaut corps.
2016: Dr. Victoria Kaspi, BSc’89, is the first woman to win the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the country’s most prestigious research prize. Kaspi is Director of the Trottier Space Institute at McGill and the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology.
2003: McGill appoints its first female principal, Dr. Heather Munroe-Blum, DSc’17.
1996: Frances Groen becomes the first Margery Trenholme Chair in University Libraries. It is the first endowed position for a university library director in Canada.
1991: McGill appoints its first female chancellor, Gretta Chambers, BA’47, DLitt’01.
1977: The men’s and women’s athletics boards are combined as the McGill Athletics Board.
1960: Isabella McLennan leaves a generous bequest to McGill. She lends her name to the McLennan Library, which opens in 1969, and the Isabella McLennan Scholarship, which is still awarded annually by the McGill Women’s Alumnae Association.
1936: Dr. Maude Abbott, BA 1890, MDCM 1910, is the first woman admitted to McGill’s Faculty Club.
1917: Women outnumber men in the Faculty of Arts for the first time.
1914: Annie MacDonald Langstaff, BCL 1914, is the first woman to graduate from McGill’s Faculty of Law. She fought a long legal battle for the right to take the bar examination, but was never admitted during her lifetime. She was posthumously admitted to the Montreal Bar in 2006.
1912: Carrie Derick becomes Canada’s first female university professor at McGill. She teaches botany.
1910: Annie MacLeod, PhD 1910, is the first woman to earn a doctorate at McGill.
1888: McGill’s first female students graduate with Bachelor of Arts degrees.
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