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Women at Texas Tech: Now and Forever Series
“Texas was hell on women and horses,” summarized Molly Ivins, a newspaper columnist, political commentator and best-selling author from Austin.
Women in Texas could not vote until 1918, could not serve on a jury until 1954, did not have full property rights until 1969 and could be killed by their husbands under a justifiable homicide law if they were found to be unfaithful until 1972.
Yet in 1925, women were attending Texas Technological College, now Texas Tech University.
Unlike many other universities across the country, at least a third of the students walking onto the campus the first day of classes were female. The fifth-largest college in Texas from the moment it opened its doors, the initial enrollment was 649 men and 276 women.
“Women were an integral part of Texas Tech from the beginning, which was unusual in those times,” said Mary Jane Hurst, a professor of English who also teaches in the women studies field. “It’s hard for us to realize how important it was that women were given such a role on campus from the start.”
Even more unusual, the new college had female faculty members.
“When something is as new as Texas Tech was, it doesn’t matter what you look like or whether you are male or female,” Hurst said. “It just matters that you can do the job.”
A New Beat
A sorority started at Texas Tech to promote women in music has spread across the nation to include more than 200 chapters.
If it weren't for the pioneering women at Texas Tech, there would be no "Tech Band Sorority."
About 70 years ago, several women in the Texas Tech band took it upon themselves to form a band sorority that would equal the male counterpart in prestige and rewards.
The result was Tau Beta Sigma, now an institution at Texas Tech.
A National Inspiration
One alumna became the first national president of a sorority started at Texas Tech.
It took a confident, independent woman to lead the charge for equal rights against the male-dominated field of music in 1946. But Doris Ragsdale Kochanek was up to the challenge.
An alumna of Texas Tech, Kochanek became the first national president of Tau Beta Sigma, a band sorority founded to counter the existing men’s fraternity, Kappa Kappa Phi.
“I think they chose me to be the first president because I was so active in band,” Kochanek said.