Dorothy Wardle

First female AMS President

In 1941, Dorothy Wardle was the first female student voted as the Alma Mater Society president.

An Arts ’42 student of English, French and Spanish, Ms. Wardle was a champion debater, a hockey, softball and basketball player, and she was a student rep on the university’s centenary celebration committee. She kicked off her campaign with a campus parade, singing chants like, “Don’t be an ass, vote for a lass!” and “Don’t be snooty, vote for a cutie!”

That year, the AMS’s new system of proportional voting allowed the ranking of candidate preferences, and Ms. Wardle and her supporters encouraged students to vote strategically, as a candidate could win based on the first- and second-place votes. Ms. Wardle was proclaimed the winner, with Chet McLean of Medicine serving as vice-president.

Ms. Wardle proved herself an effective politician. With the Second World War in its second year, her administration wanted students to make a contribution. They implemented a war tax on dance tickets, ran blood drives for the Red Cross, and promoted the sale of war savings stamps. Through the year, they raised thousands of dollars for the Queen’s War Aid Committee.

It was a decade before the next female student was voted AMS president, but as the century progressed, more and more women ran for, and were elected to, student government positions.