Lisa Scanlon Mogolov ’99

Each year at reunion, the Wellesley College Alumnae Association presents the Syrena Stackpole Award for a “lifetime of outstanding service and dedication to Wellesley.” The award honors Stackpole, class of 1909, whose devotion was legendary. She attended 63 consecutive reunions and, as an attorney, offered to rewrite the wills of alumnae who wished to leave money to the College, free of charge. Lesser known today is how she made the front page of the New York Times in 1909. As vice principal of the Bayport School in New York, she told her principal he was “no gentleman” for smoking cigars. When he demanded her resignation, she refused. Fired, she appealed, won reinstatement with back pay—and then quit. Soon after, she earned her law degree, becoming the first woman admitted to the Suffolk County Bar in 1919 and the first woman in the county to open her own law office.