Goldsmiths has existed for over a century and has seen hundreds of thousands of students, staff members, and influential members of our community pass through the doors, from groundbreaking designers and architects to stellar social workers and teachers.
So many of these people were women, yet when you look at the buildings we have on campus how do we commemorate them? An office in the Students’ Union, that was previously a kitchen, and a textiles gallery in the basement of Deptford Town Hall.
In 2017, students in the Education Department had the opportunity to change this. We ran a poll for students to choose who they wanted the Education Building to be named after, based on women chosen by academics in the department.
The options in the poll were Margaret McMillan or Caroline Graveson. The poll resulted in Education students choosing to rename their building after Margaret McMillan. Mollie, our Education Officer at the time, then took this to the University's Council to approve the name change.
Having a building, or even multiple buildings, on our campus named after women wouldn’t answer all of our questions about representation, but it is a start. We need to keep going until equality and representation are the norm, not something we have to ask for.
For more information about both of these amazing women, here’s a word from the Head of the Education Department, Carrie Paechter, and Betty Liebovich, Early Years’ Specialist.
Caroline Graveson
Margaret McMillan