Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (October 3, 1877 – July 7, 1965) was an American academic, the long-time dean of Barnard College, co-founder of the International Federation of University Women, and the only woman delegated by United States to the April 1945 San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization, which negotiated the charter for and creation of the United Nations. Biography Virginia Gildersleeve was born in New York City. She attended the Brearley School and following her graduation in 1895, went on to attend Barnard College, a member of the Seven Sisters affiliated with Columbia University. She completed her studies in 1899 and received a fellowship to undertake research for her master of arts degree in medieval history at Columbia University. She taught English part-time at Barnard for several years. She declined a full-time position and took a leave of absence to undertake her Ph.D. in English and comparative literature at Columbia for three years. When she completed her studies in 1908, she was appointed a lecturer in English in 1908 by Barnard and Columbia; by 1910, she had become an assistant professor and, in 1911, she was made dean of Barnard College. In 1918 Gildersleeve, Caroline Spurgeon, and Rose Sidgwick met while the two English women were on an academic exchange to the United States. They discussed founding an international association of university women, and in 1919, founded the International Federation of University Women. Gildersleeve and Spurgeon developed a close friendship and annually, shared a rental summer home. Following World War I, Gildersleeve became interested in international politics. She campaigned for Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt. During World War II she chaired the advisory council of the navy unit for women, the WAVES, and following the war, she was appointed to the United Nations Charter Committee. She was involved in the reconstruction of higher education in Japan. For this work she received France's Legion of Honor. Dean of Barnard College Throughout her tenure as dean of Barnard College, Gildersleeve worked to advance women's rights by championing their access to the professional school at Columbia and to its best professors. This included hiring Charles A. Beard, a young Columbia instructor in 1914 to teach Barnard's first course in American government so that Barnard graduates would be eligible to attend the Columbia School of Journalism. At the beginning of World War I, she hired the head of Columbia's anthropology department, Franz