To commemorate Women’s History Month, The University of Alabama is proud to honor female trailblazers who have made a lasting contribution to the University, state, nation and beyond. Throughout March, we encourage you to learn more about each woman as we celebrate these champions of the Capstone.
Dr. Catherine Johnson Randall earned two doctorates from UA and has been named one of the top 31 female UA graduates of the century. Randall was the first UA woman to serve as the national president of Mortar Board, a national honor society for college seniors. She was also one of the first three women in the nation to be tapped for membership in Omicron Delta Kappa, a national honor society recognizing leadership, service to the campus community and academic excellence. In 1978, Randall was named director of the Computer-Based Honors Program at the Capstone, which has become one of the most highly acclaimed undergraduate honors programs in the nation. In 2018, in honor of Randall and the program’s 50th anniversary, UA renamed the Computer-Based Honors Program the Randall Research Scholars Program.
Julia Tutwiler, known as the mother of coeducation in Alabama, successfully lobbied the UA Board of Trustees to begin admitting women to the Capstone. She served as co-president of the Livingston Normal School, which is now the University of West Alabama. Tutwiler was instrumental in the creation of the University of Montevallo, a successful advocate for prison reform in Alabama and she wrote the official state song. Tutwiler Hall, the female freshman residence hall on the south side of campus, is named in her honor.
UA graduate Nan Boden is head of global alliances at Google where she leads the group responsible for technological partnerships with companies that build their businesses on Google Cloud Platform, Google Apps, Google Maps and Google for Education products. Boden was formerly CEO of Myricom, a pioneer in high-performance computer networking. She earned a doctorate and master’s degree in computer science from Caltech, and a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from UA.
A 1987 graduate of UA, Jan Crawford is CBS News’ chief legal correspondent and a regular contributor to “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley,” “CBS This Morning” and “Face the Nation.” Crawford is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court, and her book “Supreme Court Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court,” gained critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. She is also a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and has taught journalism at American University.
A native of Huntsville, Dana Lewis used the skills she learned in UA’s Computer-Based Honors Program to create her own artificial pancreas to control her diabetes. Lewis is a 2010 graduate of the Capstone who majored in public relations and political science. She created the Open Source Artifical Pancreas System and gave the blueprint away to benefit others. All the code, documentation and reference guides are open-sourced materials available online so that others who have compatible devices can build the system themselves. To date, it has changed the lives of hundreds of people around the world.
Tennille “TD” Lowe earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from UA in 2008. Lowe created her first invention in fourth grade and saw it on store shelves eight months later, but received no profits because she unwittingly gave up her ownership rights. While still in elementary school, she dreamed up the beginnings of EnovationNation. Today, her company gives inventors and entrepreneurs a place to develop, protect, share, and ultimately, monetize their ideas. By providing a platform for people to publish their work, those seeking patents can document ownership of ideas. Lowe has been included in the Washington Post’s list of 16 Women who Deserve a Spot on Tech Companies’ Board of Directors, and has been featured in a number of national publications.
Sela Ward is a television and film actress from Meridian, Mississippi. As a student at UA, Ward was homecoming queen, a Crimson Tide cheerleader and member of Chi Omega sorority. She double majored in fine art and advertising before finding success as a model and actress. She has won numerous awards, including Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for her work in television. Her most prominent roles on TV were in “Once and Again,” “Sisters” and, more recently, “CSI: New York.” On the big screen, she has acted in 19 movies, including “The Fugitive,” “Double Jeopardy,” “Gone Girl” and “Independence Day: Resurgence.”
UA graduate Christi Parsons has been a White House correspondent since 2008. Parsons has covered three presidential elections, writing about politics for the Chicago Tribune before joining the LA Times. A native of Tuscaloosa who graduated from the Capstone in 1989, she is also a graduate of Yale Law School. Parsons has served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. In his final press conference, former president Barack Obama selected Parsons to ask the final question.