Anna Ruth Brummett Papers

Anna Ruth Brummett, daughter of James Harlan (1897-1962) and Lila Margaret Etter Brummett (1896-1962), was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas on March 25, 1924. She had two sisters, Margaret Etter Tussing (1917-2011) and Lila Mae (1928-1990). She graduated from Forth Smith High School in 1942, receiving the AA degree from Fort Smith Junior College in 1946, the B.A. with honors from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1948, and the MA from the same university in 1949. From 1949 to 1953, she attended graduate school in biology at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In her doctoral work under embryologist Jane Marion Oppenheimer (1911-1996), she applied a new carbon marking technique to the study of early vertebrate morphogenesis. She received the Ph. D. from Bryn Mawr in 1953.

Brummett's teaching career spanned thirty-three years. She held the position of Instructor in Biology at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania from 1952 to 1953 before accepting an appointment at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. There, she served as Instructor (1953-56) and Assistant Professor of Biology (1956-61). In 1961, she joined the faculty of Oberlin College as Assistant Professor of Biology and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 1967 and to Professor in 1973. Her course offerings at Oberlin included Developmental Biology, Cells and Tissues, and instruction in electronmicroscopy. For students following the "premed" curriculum, she was the most sought-after academic adviser in the department.

During her years at Oberlin, Brummett held several administrative positions and served on many of the important elected committees of the college. In 1967, she was named Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for Academic Counseling, a newly-created post which she held only for one year. She served as Acting Chairperson (1969-70) and as Chairperson (1974-81 ; 1982-83) of the Biology Department. From 1974 to 1985, she was a member of the College Faculty Council and from 1977-83 served on the General Faculty Planning Committee. During the year 1982-83, she was elected to represent the faculty on the Board of Trustees Development Committee. She chaired the ad hoc faculty Committee on Grading (1969-70) and the Committee to Review Election Procedures (1979-80). Perhaps her most enduring contribution to the college was her service as the first Chairperson of the Committee on the Status of Women (1971-76). In that capacity, she helped to prepare the 1972 report to President Robert Works Fuller (b. 1936), "Final Disposition of the Twenty-Two Recommendations Made by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women," which advocated making the ad hoc committee a permanent standing committee. The report also brought before the college's governing bodies the issue of economic fairness to its women employees.

Anna Ruth Brummett's research in the early embryology of bony fishes won international recognition. Her scholarly publications were based upon collaborative research conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (two academic years and nine summers) and at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina (one academic year and thirteen summers).  She also carried out research at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and at other universities and marine research institutes.

In addition to her teaching, research, and administrative duties, Brummett supported the cause of science education at the national level. She served for seven years as a reader of Advanced Placement Examinations in Biology for the Educational Testing Service.  She sat on the Phi Beta Kappa Qualifications Committee of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa (1971-79) and on several committees of the College Board: the Biology Achievement Committee (1975-82), the Academic Advisory Committee for Biology (1978-80), and the Science Advisory Committee (1980-83).  She was Chairman of the Board's Biology Achievement Committee from 1979 to 1983.  Brummett was a member of the American Society of Zoologists, the Ohio Academy of Science, the New York Academy of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Developmental Biology, the American Society of Cell Biology, the American Association of University Professors, and the American Association of University Women.

In 1983, Professor Brummett began receiving radiation treatments and chemotherapy.  She continued to teach and to meet her professional obligations until the spring of 1985. Anna Ruth Brummett died of cancer in Oberlin on October 21, 1985.

Sources Consulted

Records of the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (RG 9).

Staff File of Anna Ruth Brummett (RG 28).

Note written by Valerie S. Komor.