Hawkeye Reporter

Coe College issued the following announcement on July 26.

Coe College attracts those who are bold, passionate and engaged, even if they don’t find their way to campus until later in life. Joan Lipsky is a prime example of someone who had the qualities of a Kohawk well before becoming a member of the Coe community. 

Joan joined the Kohawk family at the age of 63 in 1982. She was a member of the Coe Board of Trustees and later was elected the first female chair of the board in 1997. Her position as chairperson, though, was just one of many firsts in her life — as her journey to Coe started decades earlier.

Joan earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northwestern University in 1940. She completed graduate studies in child psychology at the University of Iowa and became the first psychology intern at the University of Chicago hospitals. Later, while Joan worked as a clinical psychologist in Cedar Rapids, she noticed a gap in women elected into leadership positions. With the support of a coalition of women’s groups, Joan joined the Cedar Rapids Community School District Board of Education. Her interest in politics grew, and her talent caught the attention of a Republican Party official who encouraged her to run for a seat in the state Legislature election of 1966. 

It “sounded like a great challenge,” Joan is recalled to have said. 

She followed their advice and was the first woman elected to represent Linn County in the Iowa General Assembly. 

Her work as a state representative focused on advancing women’s legal, economic and social equality. She influenced the Equal Rights Amendment and supported educational and occupational programs for women including reforming women’s prisons in Iowa, providing leaves of absence for pregnant women and condemning sex discrimination in insurance coverage. She juggled state representative duties while serving as the assistant minority leader of the Iowa General Assembly and as a member of the Midwest Conference of State Legislators. She was named Cedar Rapids Woman of the Year and was awarded outstanding legislator by the Iowa Welfare Association. 

She also garnered the attention of Coalition Organized for Equality, a Coe-based women’s rights organization at the time. The group invited Joan to speak on campus for Women’s Awareness Week in 1975. The Coe Cosmos featured Joan’s visit and her belief that women’s week should be women’s year. 

“In government as in private employment women seldom get top job. The fact is that women do not move up in government administration as they should. Even in programs designed to help women, we get short changed. Not through ill will, but through traditional attitudes towards women,” she is quoted in the article. 

She was destined to return to Coe as a leader with an invitation to the board from President Leo Nussbaum and a unanimous vote from the Board of Trustees. 

In her official capacity as a board chair, her support for the college was unwavering. She provided strong leadership with the expansion of campus including Hickok Hall lecture room renovations and Peterson Hall of Science renovations. She made gifts to support Stewart Memorial Library, Friends of Music at Coe and the Art Department. Her generous financial support of the college established the Joan and Abbott Lipsky Chair in Political Science and the Lipsky Graduate Application Fund for Coe students applying for admission to graduate programs. At the time Joan said, “Supporting education is the most satisfying thing you can do as an individual to enhance life for everyone.” Joan herself went back to college at the University of Iowa law school where she met current board member Kent Herink ’76. 

“Joan was 61 years old at the time! She impressed everyone with her intelligence, advocacy skills and keen interest in justice. On the Coe Board of Trustees, not a meeting went by without Joan bringing up diversity and inclusion. Her tireless efforts on these issues laid the foundation for the Board’s new committee on diversity, equity and inclusion. She would be very proud,” he said.

She practiced law at Shuttleworth & Ingersoll in Cedar Rapids after graduating with a Juris Doctor from the University of Iowa in 1980. Joan was an active member of the Cedar Rapids community and held various leadership roles in the Mayor's Commission on Housing, Mayor’s Commission on Alcoholism, Employment Security Advisory Council, Cedar Rapids Women’s Club, American Association of University Women, Altrusa, Delta Kappa Gamma, Hadassah, Sisterhood of Temple Judah and the Cedar Rapids chapter of the National Organization for Women. 

In 2014, Joan served as Commencement speaker and received an honorary doctorate from Coe. She died on August 18, 2015. Joan’s legacy continues to thrive through the thousands of Iowa students attending private colleges in the state. She is credited with the creation of the Iowa Tuition Grant program. It remains an essential resource to many Iowa students who attend Coe and other private colleges.

Joan’s path to social justice and gender equality first led her to Coe for Women’s Awareness Week in 1975, but she was meant to be a Kohawk all along.   

Original source can be found here.