Famed, scholarly, 54-year-old Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia, recently began looking for a new president. Its third president, Dr. Marion Edwards Park, will retire a year from next June. Last week it became known that "prominent Bryn Mawr alumnae" want as their fourth president a certain Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
If Eleanor Roosevelt were asked for a statement of her qualifications for the job, it would be something like this:
EDUCATION—private tutors until the age of 15, three years at Mme Souvestre's school near London, three months in a French convent.
DEGREES—Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary) from Russell Sage College. Doctor of Laws (honorary) from John Marshall College of Law, Jersey City.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE — six years as teacher of civics, American history and 19th-Century literature at Manhattan's Todhunter School for Girls, of which she was associate principal.
PUBLICATIONS—four books (When You Grow Up to Vote, It's Up to the Women, A Trip to Washington with Bobby and Betty, This Is My Story), a daily newspaper column, magazine articles.
EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE—eight years managing the White House, vice president of New York League of Women Voters, chairman of legislative committee of New York Woman's City Club, etc.
MONEY-RAISING EXPERIENCE—four years as women's finance chairman of the New York Democratic Committee.
PUBLIC SPEAKING— considerable.
TRAVEL— extensive.
PUBLIC RELATIONS— excellent.
But no one knew last week whether Mrs. Roosevelt would 1) be formally offered or 2) accept the Bryn Mawr presidency. That depended among other things on whether a certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt is 1) formally offered, and 2) accepts, and 3) gets elected to another Presidency next year.