On March 8, Georgia Institute of Technology officially opened its newest permanent art installation, “Pathway of Progress: Celebrating Georgia Tech Women,” to the public.
The “pathway” is a winding mosaic sheet at the heart of campus, made up of nearly 3,000 mirrored tiles that catch the light. If you look closely, you’ll notice dozens of inscriptions on each of the tiles.
Those are the complex stories of Georgia Tech’s past, present and future women. The university opened in 1888 with a class of 84 white men. It would be years before women could enroll — in 1920, state law allowed white women into the Evening School of Commerce. It closed in 1932.
Women were not allowed to enroll at the Georgia Institute of Technology until 1952, and even then the options were restricted. It would be almost another decade before Black women were allowed to enroll. The first cohort of Black women at Georgia Tech joined in 1961.
Today, about 30 percent of the school’s students are women. The complicated and unfinished journey of Georgia Tech’s women is what inspired alumna and former instructor Andrea Laliberte to kick off the project in 2021.
“I met so many people — from astronauts to Olympians to CEOs — but what struck me was how many impressive alumnae we have,” Laliberte said in a public statement. “There are, and have been, amazing women here, but no one knows about them.”
As the former alumni association chair and donor, she had the connections to push for a large-scale permanent art installation dedicated to the university’s women. She funded the project, and the Institute matched the funds. It joins a cohort of the school’s other art installations aimed at increasing the on-campus art presence.
Merica May Jensen, a Georgia Tech alum and founding Creative Director of Gray Matters, joined the project as lead architect and artist in 2021. Jensen said she had a great experience as a female student at the school, but when she entered the professional design field, things changed.
“It’s a really rough industry for women,” Jensen said.
Jensen’s personal experience motivated her to join the project, and as she learned about the history of women on campus, the artist’s commitment grew stronger. She called the piece “profound.”
Initially, Jensen was given a year to design and build the project. But halfway through the first process, the initial design “died,” and her team was forced to pivot. They kicked off an extensive outreach plan in the summer of 2022, with alumnae, faculty, staff, and students giving feedback.
Some themes emerged. People wanted the piece to contextualize and broaden accomplishments, ensure equity, show connectivity and acknowledge the project’s “inherent incompleteness.”
Jensen said the feedback was essential, and the scope of the project “tripled in size.”
The lead artist and architect eventually landed on a three-part installation: the bench, the banner and the canopy. The enforced mosaic “fabric” would start wound up at the bench with women “at tech” who made historic impacts on the university. It would lead through the trees into the banner for those “from Tech,” alumnae who made impacts on the world after graduation. The banner would stretch into the sprawling canopy for “future Tech.” There are no inscriptions on the canopy tiles, only inspiring words underfoot to offer future generations “space to dream.”
At the March 8 opening ceremony, the university unveiled 168 inscribed tiles.
The inaugural batch has 70 alumnae tiles “from tech” and 98 history tiles “at tech.” Jensen said her team whittled down a list of about 500 stories to that first round of tiles.
Jensen gathered the history from the university’s records and staff. Each bit of history has a keyword like “ornament” or “joint.” The histories are distilled into three lines for each tile. For more recent alumnae, the team interviewed significant Georgia Tech women to create first-person bios and quotes.
Keywords like “hullabaloo” honor the first two women to enroll full-time at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Elizabeth Herndon and Diane Michel Clark. The pair banded together and created a personal code of conduct to rise above the “hullabaloo” around their enrollment.
The project will continue to change over the years. Jensen plans on adding five to 10 new women to the mosaic every year. People can suggest alumnae and stories online. To honor the “incompleteness” baked into the piece, she also left the third section blank. The mirrors instead reflect back onto the students to show they are the future.
“It’s reflective, and you see yourself in it, and it’s also reflecting the environment,” Jensen said.
Jensen’s favorite part of the project is not the physical piece, though. She loves the companion website, where all of the histories are uploaded to an interactive map.
“My favorite part of the website is you can build connections,” Jensen said.
Each person is tagged with multiple keywords, and each keyword creates a constellation through the other tiles and history. It helps interested visitors see how different women might be connected to each other.
For Jensen, it’s heartening to see the project succeed in a time of turmoil for universities across the country. As the federal government plans to reduce the amount of National Institutes of Health research funding, spending concerns loom over schools like Georgia Tech.
“I was pretty worried they might cancel the opening or the website and they’re not doing any of that,” Jensen said. “They’re following all of the rules, but they’re also completely supporting this project, which is awesome.”
Days after it opened, Jensen said the installation had already become a part of campus life. Students hung out during the day under the glittering mirrors, and a K-pop group used the plaza for a local performance. It’s a reception the project leaders hoped for.
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“My true hope is that people take the time to learn the stories of the women who are being honored, and about the history of women at Georgia Tech,” Laliberte said. “That they’re able to take away how amazing their accomplishments were, and be inspired for what they do in the future.”
