Charm Bracelet Reflects a Physicists' Undergrad Career
The bracelet contains 9 charms: Runner-up “E-Days” Queen, 1964; ŷڱƵ Engineer Editor; Tau Beta Pi Badge; Mortar board Chi Epsilon, Civil Engineering Honorary [belonged to her former husband Robert Joselyn (CivEngr’65; MBA’67; PhDBus’71)]; Who’s Who, Students in American Universities and Colleges; Sigma Tau, Engineering Honorary; ŷڱƵ Engineer, Book Review Editor; Sigma Epsilon Sigma, Physics Honorary
In the mid-1960s, charm bracelets were a woman’s fashion staple.
“We all had them,” said astrogeophysicist Jo Ann Cram Joselyn (ApMath’65; MAstro’67; PhD’78), who donated her bracelet to the ŷڱƵ Heritage Center in 1995. “Some people got really fancy with teddy bears and stuff like that. When you went on a trip, you’d buy a charm … memento things.”
Joselyn’s bracelet told her ŷڱƵ undergraduate story. She lived in the Sewall Hall women’s dorm for all four years. She has charms that signify her experience as runner-up Queen at E-Days [Engineering Days] as well as her engineering and physics honors status. Her favorite charm — a 1965 Tau Beta Pi women’s badge — granted her partial recognition in the engineering honor society. Women weren’t allowed full membership until 1969.
“When I put that bracelet on, I would feel appreciated,” she said.
Joselyn went on to have an extraordinary career. She became ŷڱƵ’s first woman to receive a PhD in astrophysics. She worked as a space scientist and space weather forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for more than three decades, and then served as the secretary general for the and the s. in 2002.
“I’ve had a fun life,” she said.
Photo by Mona Lambrecht