Jill K Conway

Dr. Conway was a Professor of History and President of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1975 to 1985. In retirement, Jill K. Conway was Visiting Scholar with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program in Science, Technology and Society. She graduated from the University of Sydney and in 1960, she left Australia for graduate work at Harvard University, and by age 40 was president of Smith. As part of her work as a teaching fellow at Harvard, she took over a section of a large social science course taught by John J. Conway. They married in 1962. Nearly two decades her senior, John was a history professor and college administrator. They moved to Toronto in 1964 when he began teaching at York University. At the University of Toronto, she rose from lecturer to become vice president for internal affairs. She was affiliated with the University of Toronto from 1964 to 1975, and held the position of Vice President, Internal Affairs from 1973 to 1975. Dr. Conway’s husband died, at 79, in 1995. Dr. Conway holds numerous Honorary Doctorates from North American universities. She is also a director of Colgate-Palmolive Company and a former director of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. The youngest of three siblings, Jill Ker was born in Hillston in the New South Wales state in Australia, a few years after her family started a sheep ranch that covered thousands of acres on a windy desolate plain.