Honoring Jean O'Barr

“The best knowledge is created in a social context.” --Jean Fox O'Barr

Political scientist and women’s studies scholar Jean Fox O’Barr has been building community at Duke University since 1969. After directing Continuing Education for eleven years, she established the Women’s Studies Program in 1983. O’Barr did groundbreaking work to foster connections between faculty members and with students while fulfilling her roles as an administrator, as the editor of feminist journal Signs, and as a published author.

Often an innovator, O’Barr encouraged female faculty members to share their academic and research interests through the Faculty Women’s Network. She also developed a course on gender at Duke that used primary source materials from the University Archives to explore women’s roles at the university since the nineteenth century. Although O’Barr retired in 2008, she maintains her connection to Duke by teaching the senior seminar for the Baldwin Scholars each fall.

In honor of Jean O’Barr’s influential career at Duke University and her dedication to women’s education, including early education, college, and continuing education for adults, the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture is hosting a symposium around this theme. This program is also an opportunity for the many people whose lives she has touched to give back in honor of Jean, who has designated that all gifts in her honor will support the work of the Bingham Center.

As a co-founder of the Bingham Center, Jean O’Barr was a member of a small group that created the Women's Studies Archivist position in 1988. The center was permanently endowed in 1993 and named the "Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture" in 1999. The Center is charged with acquiring, preserving and providing access to published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women past and present.

Your gift in honor of Jean O’Barr will support the work of our librarians to collect and provide access to books, manuscripts, photographs, and digital media that document five centuries of women’s history, as well as our innovative outreach programs like this symposium that help connect our resources to a broader audience. If we receive enough donations, we will create an endowment in Jean O'Barr's name. Thank you in advance for your generosity in celebrating Dr. Jean Fox O'Barr.

To make a gift to the Bingham Center in honor of Dr. Jean Fox O'Barr, please complete the donation form linked here and return it to the address below. If you have questions about making a gift, please contact Tom Hadzor, Director of Development, by phone 919-660-5940 or email T.Hadzor@duke.edu.

We are also holding a dinner in honor of Jean O'Barr to benefit the Bingham Center on Friday, October 31. More details about the dinner, including a list of featured speakers.

Download Donation Form [PDF, 70KB]

Return by mail to:

Duke University Libraries
Attn: Kurt Cumiskey
Box 90197
Durham, NC 27708-0197

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