Queen's University. Alumnae Association

Entidad colectiva

Queen's University. Alumnae Association

n.d.

This Association for Queen's women graduates was founded at the turn of the twentieth century to serve the University, and especially to help female students. Now disbanded, Alumnae Association's main accomplishment, during its 90-year history, was to found, and help fund, the University's women's residences, which it largely ran until the early 1970's. Residences for women were initially housed in rented buildings near campus. Finally, after a huge fundraising crusade involving alumnae from across Canada, and dozens of bridge parties, teas, and rummage sales, they moved to a permanent home in Ban Righ Hall. Completed in 1925, Ban Righ was planned, organized, and mostly funded by the Alumnae Association.

In exchange for its contribution, the Association fought for, and won, from the University's Board of Trustees, a role in the management of the residence, and Association volunteers sat on the Ban Righ Board and continued to have a direct role in running (and funding) the growing number of women's residences until the early 1970s, when the University took over the management of the residences and the Ban Righ Board became an advisory body only. The Association also insisted that any surpluses from the running of Ban Righ be put to other purposes involving women's residences. The Board of Trustees agreed, partly because many of its members doubted there would be a surplus. By the end of the era of alumnae management, however, a large surplus had accumulated, and part of this money was used to launch and maintain the Ban Righ Foundation for Continuing Education (now the Ban Righ Centre) in 1974. After 1986 the Alumnae Association did not exclusively represent female Queen's graduates: they also belonged to the general alumni association, which started in 1926 and included both men and women. The Alumnae Association ceased to exist in 1990, and was replaced by a Committee on Women's Affairs within the Alumni Association.

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