Patricia McGuire is a pre-eminent advocate for women's education, most notably women's colleges, colleges which give priority and a place for women to discover and develop their individual voices in the presence of other women and to discover and develop appreciation for the possibilities and power of the voices of women in and for the world in order to make it more hospitable for women, children and families.
Patricia McGuire's life gives witness to the value of women's education through her person and her actions. Growing up in a large Catholic Philadelphia family, she enjoyed the remarkable and rigorous Catholic high school education at Merion Mercy Academy which provided her and other young women a strong foundation in skills and knowledge and a strong desire to continue learning. She went on to Trinity College in Washington, D.C. becoming a model of the student athlete: captain of the basketball team and cum laude graduate. Patricia earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, working in law clinics, she says, "trying to save the world by helping indigent clients." She served as project director for Georgetown's D.C. Street Law Project.
In 1988 Patricia McGuire was the Assistant Dean for Development and External Affairs for Georgetown University Law Center, and also an adjunct professor of law. In that year Trinity College was looking for its sixth president in eight years and it was an institution adrift and in trouble. In 1989 Patricia McGuire became Trinity's President and began a transformation which "gave vigorous life and direction to an institution convinced that the world, and especially its women, still needs this form of education." Her leadership, her passion, intelligence and many talents have been brought to bear to bring about the re-birth of Trinity College, and to elevate the visibility and value of this Catholic women's college and the visibility and value of women's colleges in the world.
As a woman leader, Patricia McGuire serves as a member of the boards of directors of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Women's College Coalition, chair of the Washington Metropolitan Consortium of Universities, the Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation, the D.C. Agenda Project, the Acacia Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Ameritas Acacia Mutual Holding Company, Elderhostel Inc., the Eastern High School Choir, and the College Information Center. She currently also serves on the Commission on Adult Education of the American Council on Education and the Task Force on Female Sports and Athletic Programs for the D.C. Public Schools. She is a former trustee of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, former Commissioner of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and former member of the Board of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. In 2000 she was appointed by D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and the D.C. Financial Control Board to a special term on the Education Advisory Committee overseeing the D.C. Public Schools.
Serving on these various boards, she is often the only woman present. As such she reminds women and those who would prepare them for leadership that it is still the case that the higher a woman goes, the closer she gets to the glass ceiling where its size and breadth and thickness become ever more apparent and what one suspects has occurred on the other side really indeed has. These experiences have taught her why it is so vitally important for women to be in those places, to be party to the decisions large and small that shape our society and its institutions. Her commitment to the development of young women as future leaders has made her an important presence to the National Capital Girl Scouts and their leadership training. She writes and speaks widely on behalf of higher education, especially Catholic higher education and the education of women and her articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education and The New York Times. She was also legal affairs commentator for the award-winning CBS children's newsmagazine 30 Minutes and the Fox Television program Panorama in Washington.
It is her view that the way to make young girls and women truly powerful is by the example of women leaders who know themselves and proclaim confidently their values, their unique quirks and distinctive creative genius. In this way a leader shows a woman how to be herself. The role of women's colleges where women learn together in the presence of other women is not simply to be a rehearsal of the women's chorus for a future part in a mixed chorus concert, rather it is the opportunity for the women in the chorus to discover their own song, to develop it and to add this song to the repertoire of great music enriching and broadening human possibility and humanizing the world.
For her distinguished leadership in the higher education of women, as teacher, writer, speaker and advocate of women's rights, for her active service in educational, legal, civic, and corporate associations and committees, for being a model of the woman of achievement who makes a significant difference in the lives of others by unreservedly sharing her considerable talents and gifts and for her outstanding leadership as President of Trinity College, The College of New Rochelle confers on Patricia McGuire the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
