Martha Bob Lucas Pate (November 27, 1912 - May 16, 1983) was a Kentucky-born administrator of colleges and organizations dedicated to international affairs, education, humanitarian aid, and religion. She was best known for her tenure as the fourth president of Sweet Briar College from 1946 to 1950. After the Board of the college refused to integrate the school in 1949, she left to become active in the United Negro College Fund, the Foreign Policy Association, the Council on Religion and International Affairs, the Fund for Theological Education, the Institute for International Education, the Fund for Peace, and the New York Medical College, to name a few. She spent the last few years of her life lobbying against nuclear weapons.
Early life
Martha Lucas was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 27, 1912. Her father, Robert H. Lucas, was a lawyer who briefly served as the United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1929–1930). He was also an executive director of the Republican National Committee, and unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1936. Lucas spoke of highly of her father in interviews and in writing over the years, referring to him as "a political leader." Her mother was Gertrude Lasch Lucas. Lucas attended J.M. Atherton High School - a high school for women - in Louisville, graduating in 1929.
Lucas began her college studies at Vassar College in 1931, but transferred to Goucher College, graduating from there in 1933 with honors and a degree in English. She earned her master's degree in Philosophy in 1935 from George Washington University. From 1935 to 1939 Lucas traveled extensively in Europe, studying at the Alliance Francaise and at Sorbonne University in Paris. In 1940 she received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of London, having enjoyed studying with students from all over the world. Her years abroad and the friendships she made there significantly influenced her devotion to global issues for the rest of her life.
Career
In 1941, at age 28, Lucas landed her first professional employment as dean of students and associate professor of philosophy and religion at Westhampton College, which was a part of the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. Westhampton was dedicated to the education of women, as was Sweet Briar College where Lucas would continue her administrative career. Lucas was hired during the tenure of Dean May Keller, who like Lucas had also graduated from Goucher and earned her Ph.D. abroad. Three years later Lucas became assistant dean at Radcliffe College, and two years later, at age 33, she accepted the presidency of Sweet Briar College in Amherst, Virginia. The previous president, Meta Glass, announced that she would retire at age 65 after 21 years of service to that college.
When Lucas was inaugurated at Sweet Briar in 1946, "she was one of the youngest college presidents in the nation at a time when only six women presided over college administrations." While at Sweet Briar, Lucas increased student government, dividing its functions into executive and judicial functions and holding many meetings to assess the educational process. She also brought speakers and professors from across the country and world to campus, assumed leadership of the Junior Year Abroad program from the University of Delaware and emphasized the importance of educating women for global citizenship. She wrote,
If we are to educate for world awareness and enlarged moral responsibility, we must enable our people to see their own civilization in the larger context of world history and many cultures. We must acquire a sympathetic understanding of the values and aspirations which determine the thinking and acting of human beings in the vast areas of eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the islands of the many seas. We must study [them] . . . not as . . . remote and antique culture but as a living and dynamic factor in our present world.
While president of Sweet Briar College, Lucas also oversaw the establishment of the Lyman Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion series in 1948, and a long-sought Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 1949. She also served on the national selection committee for Fulbright Scholars.