April 10, 1967

British philosopher and political theorist Sir Isaiah Berlin, former Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory and president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, gave the first C. Mildred Thompson Lecture of the academic year, entitled, “The Enlightenment Century: Revolution in Ethics and Politics.”

The Thompson lectureship, given by an anonymous donor, honored American historian C. Mildred Thompson ’03, who taught in the history department from 1910 until 1923, when she became Vassar’s dean, a position she held until her retirement in 1948. Dean Thompson died in 1975.