Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist
Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist
Ursula walks down the hall, trying to hide her jittery nerves. It’s the first day of the school year, and professors have to be prepared for pranks from their students. Ursula’s first-year engineering students will almost certainly try to surprise her. A snake in her desk drawer maybe? A frog in the pocket of her lab coast? Perhaps a smoke bomb? One year, a bucket of water drenched her from above when she walked into a classroom! A woman professor is an oddity to a classroom full of men. They have a hard time believing she has the right-or the knowledge-to stand in front of them, as their teacher. One day, she thinks, I will not be the only one. There will be women teaching and studying in engineering departments everywhere. But not today. She opens the classroom door, takes a deep breath, and steps in.
In 1967, Ursula became a full-time associate professor in U of T’s Faculty of Engineering. She was the first woman professor in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering, which is all about understanding metals, how they work, and what we can do with them. Her appointment was a sign that the university’s attitudes toward women in science were changing…slowly.
Almost everyone has felt nervous on the first day of school, and many know what it’s like to wonder if there will be anyone else like them. As a student and a professor, Ursula Franklin walked into many classrooms knowing she would be the only woman. Her passion for science, as well as her determination to make the world better for others, motivated her to stay focused on the task at hand.
Growing up in Germany, Ursula is an inquisitive child, always asking her parents how various things that caught her attention are made and who made them. While questions like these can sometimes test a parent’s patience, Ursula’s parents encourage questions about the world around her by taking her to museums, the zoo, galleries, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. As a teen, Ursula has excellent grades and already knows she wants to attend university when life is turned upside down for everyone as Hitler rises to power. Businesses are destroyed, and people disappear in the night. Ursula’s family is determined to not leave and tries to maintain some normalcy despite the chaos around them, but, as it becomes clear things are going to get much worse, Ursula’s parents begin to make plans to send Ursula to university in England. The plan doesn’t come together, and Ursula and her family as sent to work camps. When Germany is liberated, Ursula leaves for university and conquers one obstacle after another, paving the way for women in STEM both as students and faculty.
Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist was written by Ursula Franklin’s daughter, Monica Franklin, and it’s clear her daughter admires her mother, and so will readers when they learn about the obstacles overcome and triumphs celebrated by Ursula Franklin. Each chapter begins by describing the setting through Ursula’s eyes: her surroundings, her challenge, and the emotions she must have experienced. This setting of the stage brings readers into the story where they’ll be cheering Ursula on through each chapter of her life.
Black and white photos of Ursula and others from different periods of her life make her incredible story from a young girl condemned to a Nazi labour camp to the first female professor at McGill University to an engineer whose discoveries were so important to engineering that they couldn’t be ignored by her male colleagues who had questioned whether she deserved to work beside them and get paid the same wages. Ursula’s story, from challenging and initiating change in her sexist workplace, winning pay equity for women engineers to come, all while raising a family, will inspire readers of all genders to never give up on their dreams.
Crystal Sutherland (MLIS, MEd (Literacy)) is a librarian living in Halifax, Nova Scotia.