Joan Straumanis

Joan Straumanis ( born 1937) is an academic administrator, philosopher, second-wave feminist, mathematician, civil libertarian, public speaker, and American pioneer in women's studies. She co-created the first women's studies program outside a public university, and served as president of both Antioch College and the Metropolitan College of New York and as academic dean at other institutions.

Early life and education Straumanis was born in New York City. She lived most of her childhood in Parkchester, a 12,000 unit post-war housing development in the Bronx. She was the oldest child of second-generation immigrants, whose parents left eastern Europe in the early twentieth century. Her father, Herbert S. Cole, was raised in a Jewish orphanage in New York and became the first in his family to attend college. Her mother, Mollie Brandt Cole, attended college only after a long career in insurance administration. As a young child, Joan was given freedom to travel by subway and visit museums alone, allowing her to develop personal independence and wide interests.

Straumanis is a graduate of Bronx High School of Science (1953) and of Antioch College (1957). After attaining the equivalent of a master's degree in mathematics based on graduate studies at the University of Colorado and Ohio State University, she completed a PhD in the philosophy department at the University of Maryland (1971).

Academic career summary Straumanis taught in secondary education and higher education, and worked in two U.S. government agencies administering grant programs: the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. She served as a leader and administrator at five US colleges: Kenyon College (Academic Dean/Associate Provost), Rollins College (Dean of the Faculty), Lehigh University (Arts and Sciences Dean), Antioch College (President), and Metropolitan College of New York (President). She was the first woman to hold a senior administration position at Kenyon College as well as the first woman to hold the rank of full professor there. She was the first female president of Antioch College and the first woman to be a dean at any college within Lehigh University.

Straumanis taught mathematics to high school students before earning a PhD in philosophy, afterwards teaching philosophy at the college level. At various institutions, Straumanis taught ethics, logic, women's studies, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, history of science, and philosophy of language, among other classes.

Throughout her career, she supported academic innovation including with service on these boards: Ohio Foundation for Independent Colleges, INTART Foundation (promoting contemporary Russian art), Museo Fondo Del Sol, SMART Discovery Center science museum, Orlando Science Center, and Northwest Area Foundation. Straumanis has also served on numerous accreditation boards, institutional review boards, academic commissions and task forces.

Institutional transition leadership Antioch College

During her two-and-a-half-year contract as president of Antioch College (2002–2004), Straumanis rebuilt community trust with the staff unions, completing the first contract revision negotiation in thirty years. She oversaw a Renewal Commission, chartered by the board of trustees, and the Committee of 150, a broad volunteer effort by top professionals in higher education in honor of the college's sesquicentennial year. She brought in Antioch as a founding member of the Eco League multi-college environmental consortium of "green" colleges. During her presidency, she also launched a capital campaign and helped initiate curricular reform and budget stabilization plans.

Straumanis's comments upon being hired indicate her approach to complex situations:“It’s exciting,” she said of her new post at the college. “It’s going to be challenging, and it’s going to be an adventure.”

Kenyon College

As a feminist and education innovator, Straumanis brought some controversial ideas when she moved to Kenyon College as associate provost. Most important was the concept that women's studies should be taught as part of a liberal arts education, and within her first year (1983–1984) she had recruited a team to create a class.

She also held that a liberal arts education should incorporate computers, tools that were part of "the best of our age" that should be incorporated more thoroughly in education. Academic computing was just emerging in the U.S., but she made sure Kenyon was at the leading edge.

Straumanis also spearheaded a five-year double degree in teacher education, a school-college articulation program for gifted high school students, and followed closely on the heels of the trail-blazing programs at UCSD and SUNY Buffalo, both in 1971.…in 1978, Denison became the first co-ed college in the country to institute a graduation requirement for either a Black studies or women's studies course. In 1981, Denison established a women's studies minor. And in 1983, a women's studies major. In 1973, it was not possible to get a graduate degree in women's studies, so the faculty resisted requests to approve formal classes. Rather than create a normal, graded credit course, they undertook a pass/fail interdisciplinary seminar without grades and incorporating student leadership. This allowed for curricular freedom without encroaching on any department's turf. Straumanis was awarded the inaugural (first annual) Faculty Leadership Award, Crossed Keys Honorary in 1981 at Denison University. She was instrumental in the founding of the Great Lakes Colleges Association's Women's Studies Consortium At the National Science Foundation from 2008 to 2010 she managed basic research on neuroscience and learning at the Research Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). In her SBE work, she guided innovative projects developing culturally grounded learning models for Native American Communities, as well as other work on Native American partnerships.

At the National Academy of Engineering Straumanis also played an independent advisory role on matters involving engineering and technology from 2000 to 2002.

Grant resource

Her 1992 FIPSE guide, "Funding Your Best Ideas: A 12 Step Program," became a standard grant-seeker reference used in many institutions. It is still in use well beyond her employment at the Department of Education.

Political activities American Civil Liberties Union Straumanis served as a board member in five chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Ohio rape counseling law Students from Straumanis's 1974 Legal Rights of Women course examined rape law in Ohio after a rape on the Denison University campus. Straumanis was herself arrested (but never prosecuted) for failure to report a felony. Her announcement to the community of the fact that a rape had occurred precipitated this arrest, after she had been approached confidentially by the student who was raped. The students, continuing the effort long after class had ended, proposed legislation to decriminalize confidentiality maintained by de facto counselors such as professors and advisors. In 1976, the legislation covering sexual assault and rape counseling, even by nonprofessional counselors, was signed into Ohio law.

Personal life While at Antioch she married chemist Irwin Pomerantz, from whom she is divorced. While at the University of Maryland she married philosopher and educator Eric Straumanis, who is deceased. She has three children and four grandchildren.