Jenijoy La Belle


Jenijoy La Belle is an American professor of English literature at California Institute of Technology. Hired in 1969, she became the first female professor in Caltech history. She is known for her fight to attain tenure in the early '70s, also at Caltech. She was granted tenure in 1979.

Biography

Raised in Olympia, WA, she attended Olympia High School. After high school, she attended the University of Washington in Seattle where she received a BA in English in 1965. In 1969, she received a PhD from the University of California, San Diego. Her PhD thesis concerned the poetry of Theodore Roethke. That same year, she was hired as professor at Caltech.

Landmark Caltech tenure case

In 1969, La Belle began teaching at Caltech, making her the first female professor in Caltech history. In 1974, the English department recommended her for tenure. The decision was overturned by the division chair, economic historian Robert Huttenback. After filing a complaint with the EEOC and with the support of several notable academics, including Richard Feynman and Robert F. Christy, she was finally awarded tenure in 1979. Olga Taussky Todd was a research associate at Caltech from 1957 to 1971 and received tenure in 1963; however, she became a full professor in 1971 only.

Published works

In 1975, Le Belle co-authored Night Thoughts or the Complaint and the Consolation Illustrated by William Blake with Robert N. Essick. In 1976, she published Herself Beheld: The Literature of the Looking Glass. In 1977, she again joined with Robert N. Essick to publish Flaxman's Illustrations to Homer. In 2015, she published The Echoing Wood of Theodore Roethke.