Last week Nancy Pelosi made history by being sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House, becoming the first woman closest to the position of president, only second in line to Vice President Dick Cheney. This position holds the power to set the political agenda. WSU had a similar achievement last month when Elson S. Floyd was named the first black president of the university, a long time coming in the 110-year history of WSU. His appointment comes with varied emotions regarding the loss of current WSU President V. Lane Rawlins and his potential as a leader.

Terijayne Owen, a senior general studies major, said that although she is sad to see Rawlins leave, she has heard great things about Floyd. “I’m excited to get to know him ... I heard he was an amazing orator,” she said.

Owen is planning to watch the video stream of Floyd’s speech at the news conference where he was named president. Helen Abbo, a senior biotechnology major, admitted that she has not read much about Floyd, but she thinks he is “pretty intelligent and exciting.” “It’s surprising an African-American was elected,” she said.

It is surprising that WSU is ushering in a new era of diversity with a very qualified man from a different background than Rawlins. It would be nice to see our university matching our government’s leadership and name more women to positions of power. WSU does have a strong history of gender equality. According to a class lecture by WSU professor Birgitta Ingemanson, in WSU’s first graduating class in 1897, three of the seven graduates were women. The old rabble-rousers of WSU even protested in the beginning of the 20th century when administrators made a rule forbidding women to go out after dark. Also, according to a presentation from the Office of Equity and Diversity, the first black graduate of WSU was a woman in 1913. Six buildings on the WSU campus are named for individual women. Ironically, the women’s studies department is housed in Wilson Hall, originally built for agriculture and named after James Wilson, the secretary of agriculture from 1897 to 1913. Unfortunately, this intense demand for equality is not reflected in the legislative bodies that govern university policy. Only one-third of the university’s Board of Regents are women.

Like our nation, WSU is at a great turning point in leadership that could alter the path of current decision-making. In Washington, D.C., Pelosi has already made a commitment to addressing U.S. involvement in Iraq and also in more social issues like raising the national minimum wage. Now in Pullman, there is the opportunity for Floyd’s appointment could be a step in the right direction that equality, and perhaps, even enhance the chance of appointing a woman president in the near future.