Profile: Ms. Nancy Scarth (Sci'49)

Nancy Moffat Scarth (Sci'49) was the first woman to graduate with an Applied Science degree from Queen's. Born in 1928, she grew up in a rural area outside of Weston, now part of Toronto, and attended Weston Collegiate and Vocational School. Fortunately, a friend's father who was also a physics professor at the University of Toronto encouraged her to enter engineering rather than maths and physics, saying that there would be more job opportunities on graduation.

Ms. Scarth chose Queen's over U of T where she would have to live and study at the Ajax Campus due to the great influx of veterans who were financed by the Canadian government to start their university studies in the fall of 1945. In Queen's she chose a university with little gender bias considering the times.

At age 16 off she went to Ban Righ Hall and a first year class of over 200 men, most of them mature war vets who had no problems in accepting a young woman in their midst. A large number of these first-year students became Sci'48-1/2, going on to complete their degree in the six-month spring-summer periods. Ms. Scarth continued in the fall-winter sessions with the Sci'49 class who had done their first year in the summer of 1945-46 - a double cohort is nothing new for Queen's!

"It was a privilege to know these men who were having to make the sudden transition to university after years of war service; it was especially difficult for those dealing with war injuries both physical and psychological, and those men with family responsibilities. I salute them all," she says.

In her second year at Queen's, Ms. Scarth took the geology-mineralogy option, but realizing that fieldwork and jobs would be limited for a woman, she opted for engineering physics in her last two years and graduated with honours.

"One very special summer job was drawing geophysical maps (ink on linen in those days) for the great geophysicist and humanist, Dr. J. Tuzo Wilson, truly a remarkable and inspiring man. For most of us, the university years were a time of working hard - and playing hard," she adds.

As a member of the Queen's swimming team (diving and synchronized) Ms. Scarth won her Queen's letter; she also participated for two years in the Aquacades.

In her third and fourth years at Queen's she lived at the Sci'44 Co-op (Boucher House) and was on the board of directors.

"We had great times at Collins House with evening singsongs to Mac Whitton's guitar, and bridge games after lunch. And then of course there was the football rivalry with U of T and the special train to Toronto - settlers' cars with wooden seats and gaslights," she says.

Although encouraged to take a graduate degree, Ms. Scarth was exhausted from the years of intensive study, and excited about entering the work force in those heady postwar years. In retrospect she feels that an advanced degree would have helped her career-wise, but at the same time it would have narrowed her outlook on life and society.

Nancy Scarth's first job at Alulabs in Kingston lasted only a few months as she was caught in one of the company's regular downsizings. She then went on to work at the new General Electric Major Appliance Division factory in east end Montreal for five years, where her major accomplishment was developing a statistical quality control programme - a process then in its infancy.

"Now I realize that I was denied opportunities and advancement that would have been open to men," she says. "Management in those days was very chauvinistic and I did not recognize the discrimination, having never experienced it at home or at school. However, I found new challenges in raising three children on a farm where we had a small sow-weaner pig operation, horses and Siberian huskies."

She immersed herself in the French-Canadian culture and became fluently bilingual. Prior to "retiring" in 1958 to raise a family, Ms. Scarth worked in the Investment Department of Sun Life, assessing municipal bonds. She was the first woman to take a business trip on their behalf, flying to the Lac St. Jean area and visiting the communities there where the company had holdings. None of the men in the department could speak French so management felt that her bilingualism overcame the disadvantage of being female.

Except for a few years in the 70's as a real estate agent, Ms. Scarth's work has been in the volunteer sector, where she has been able to use her organizational and interpersonal skills to great advantage. She edited the Baie d'Urfe community newspaper; organized and led Girl Guide camps and canoe trips; spent several years on the National Executive of the Canadian Girl Guides at a time when major changes were made to policies and programmes; organized and competed in dog sled races; organized and managed dressage horse shows in the Ottawa area; recently completed 10 years as a member of the Dressage Rules Committee of Equine Canada; and for over 15 years answered the phone on volunteer shifts at the Ottawa Distress Centre.

"It is interesting to note that a number of Sci'49 ers have obtained artsy' degrees such as teaching, ministry and fine arts, and I am one of them, being awarded a BA in Slavic Studies summa cum laude in 1997 by the University of Ottawa," says Ms. Scarth.

This summer she will make her ninth trip to Russia; she has a special interest in Siberia, where she has a Russian friend living in Irkutsk. Ms. Scarth is presently secretary of The Canadian Friends of The Hermitage, and in 2002 was invited to give a paper on Canadian voluntarism to an International Museums Association conference in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia.

Ms. Scarth observes that advancement in science and technology since her Queen's years is astounding, and knowledge seems to be expanding exponentially.

"Certainly society needs those special people who will concentrate their lives in improving methodology, researching problems, making discoveries, and keeping up with the learning curve in their field," she says. "However, society also needs the troops who will do the building, keep the wheels turning, and who will have a broader view of society, often making contributions outside their role as an engineer per se."

In the latter case, university experiences in decision-making, leadership and interpersonal relationships, through team projects, sports and other campus activities, are invaluable, she adds. "I look on education as the development of the whole person to enable one to make decisions throughout one's life, for enrichment of oneself, those near to one, and humanity."