College of Criminal Justice students in the mid-1970s
faced a dearth of good co-op jobs, due perhaps to a poor economy and the
newness of the college (which was founded only in 1966). Nor did CJ as
yet have many women students, prompting then assistant to the dean (now
associate dean) Robert Croatti to remark, "The whole thing with the
women's movement is bringing women into the college. Yes, women can do
it!" It was all the more notable, then, that in the fall of 1974,
two Northeastern women were employed in the security detail at the Federal
Reserve Bank of Boston. Pictured here at the pistol range in the Fed's
old headquarters on Post Office Square, the students were trailblazers
at a time when it was "very unusual" for women to hold such positions,
according to the co-op department's current liaison at the bank. A former
co-op coordinator for CJ, Hugh Talbot, UC'70, UC'71, MPA'78, believes that
the otherwise unidentified student on the right may be the one who, in
a briefly famous episode, chased down and apprehended a would-be bicycle
thief outside the bank-thus demonstrating the truth of Croatti's assertion
that "Yes, women can do it!"
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
DEPARTMENT