NEW DELHI: “We were only four girls in the maths honours class. We were wanted everywhere — societies, sports, drama club — because there were hardly any women on campus.”
When Nandita Narain walked into St Stephen’s College in 1976, women were still a novelty at the institution that had opened its doors to female students only a year earlier. In classrooms, dramatics societies and hostel corridors, the college was still adjusting to what co-education meant. “There were no female candidates anywhere,” recalled Narain, part of the second batch after St Stephen’s became co-ed.
“The Shakespeare Society earlier used to bring girls from Miranda House to perform female roles. Suddenly, girls became part of campus life.”
Five decades later, the college is preparing for another first. Founded in 1881, St Stephen’s College has announced the appointment of its first woman principal in 145 years history,
Prof Susan Elias , who is set to take charge from June 1. Elias will serve as the 14th principal of the college, succeeding John Varghese. She is a double PhD from IIT Madras and Anna University.
Prof Susan Elias has previously served as pro vice chancellor at Chandigarh University. and has also worked as professor of electronics engineering at VIT Chennai, among other academic roles, according to her LinkedIn profile. Elias could not be reached for comment.
The milestone comes nearly 50 years after the college became co-educational in 1975 and two decades after it elected its first woman students’ union president in 2005.
For many women associated with the college across generations, the appointment feels less sudden than overdue.
Founded in Chandni Chowk by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, the college became part of University of Delhi in 1922 before moving to its iconic red-brick campus in the University Enclave. But for nearly a century after its founding, the institution remained an all-male preserve.
Even after women entered classrooms in 1975, gender ratios remained uneven for years, former students recalled. Narain remembers the early years with affection.
“The boys were very chivalrous and gentlemanly,” she said. “We would sing songs together, attend society activities and stay back for dramatics rehearsals. At that time, there were no Metro trains or app-based taxis, so I would travel home late by exchanging multiple buses after college events.” But the arrival of women also quietly altered campus culture.
“Earlier boys would roam freely in residential blocks,” she recalled.
“Suddenly women were there, and they felt they had lost some privacy.”
According to Narain, the atmosphere shifted in the 1980s as women students became more visible academically and politically.
“There was a culture of ‘chic charts’ where sexually coloured remarks would be pasted on notice boards,” she recalled from her later years as a teacher at the college. “Girls made the boys nervous,” she added, laughing. She remembers a woman candidate nearly winning the students’ union election in the 1980s itself before losing by two votes after a recount.
“The boys felt very competitive towards us,” she said.
At the same time, women students were also pushing for greater space within the institution — campaigning for hostel access and curfew reforms. Around 1977, three of the six hostel blocks were converted into women’s hostels.
“Women became the moral fibre of the college,” Narain said. Yet the Stephen’s she remembers was also full of irreverence and camaraderie.
For Dr Maya John, who became the college’s first woman students’ union president in 2005—now a faculty member at Jesus and Mary College, Elias’s appointment brings back memories of the battles women students fought for equal space on campus.
“When we initiated campaigns for equitable women’s hostels in St Stephen’s, one could see the glass ceiling becoming more visible,” she said. “Even after I became the first woman president of the students’ union, there were attempts in the name of ‘maintaining tradition’ to preserve male privilege within institutional structures.”
John said she hopes the appointment of a woman principal would encourage greater gender parity and make educational institutions more inclusive. Current women students at the college expressed excitement over the appointment, with several describing it as a “historic moment” for the institution.
“We were not expecting a woman principal but when we got the news through the college circular there were a lot of happy reactions,” said a first year history honours student.
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