shaping of the world. In 1917, when the Presidency of Smith College became vacant, Ada was given the responsibility of its operation for approximately 6 months, but was neither given the title of acting President nor was she considered for the position. Despite Ada's significant and numerous contributions to the College, Smith was not ready for its first woman President. From 1921 to 1923, she served as president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now known as the American Association of University Women. She was a founding member and one of the five American voting delegates to the first conference of the International Federation of University Women in London in 1920 and at the second in Paris in 1922. One of their objects was the forwarding of higher education for women in every country in the world. She was active in other areas in public life as well. In 1929 she was the only woman named by President Herbert Hoover to an eleven-person commission to study problems of law enforcement. She was a president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vice Chairman of the American Council of Institute of Pacific Relations and served on the National Committee for Planned Parenthood. On October 20, 1923, Comstock was inaugurated as president of Radcliffe College. She spent 20 years leading the school, strengthening its academic programs and, in 1943, persuaded Harvard to accept classroom coeducation. Also under President Comstock, Radcliffe was able to launch a nationwide admission program, improve student housing, construct new classroom buildings and expand the graduate program. When Radcliffe celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1954, Comstock was called "the chief architect of the greatness of this college". In addition to her academic career, Comstock was appointed to the National Committee on Law Observation and Enforcement, known as the Wickersham Commission, in 1929. After her retirement from Radcliffe, Comstock remained active in academia, serving on the Smith board of trustees, working on a graduate center for Radcliffe, and traveling extensively in support of her husband's research. Personal life A week after her retirement from Radcliffe in 1943, Comstock married Yale professor emeritus Wallace Notestein. They had met in Minnesota decades before, but Comstock had focused on her academic career, as her father wished. Neither had married in the intervening years. Notestein died in 1969. Death Ada Comstock Notestein died of congestive heart failure at her home in New Haven,