Launching a legacy
Phyllis Bowen, professor emerita in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, sees obstacles and success as two sides of the same coin. Her greatest career challenge was building the department, formerly the Department of Human Nutrition, from scratch. But ask Bowen to name her favorite story of success and the answer is the same: “Building the department from nothing!”
It’s clear from Bowen’s long and impressive career that she’s not the least bit scared of blazing trails or getting down to the tough business of hard work. As a child growing up in Philadelphia, she spent many hours outside, inventing meals that could be cooked over a campfire or Bunsen burner. By the time she was 11 years old, she was preparing every meal for her family of four while her parents worked.
Despite this early propensity for cooking, nutrition was the furthest thing from Bowen’s mind. She wanted to become a doctor, and she pursued this plan at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. It wasn’t uncommon for Bowen to be one of only a handful of young women in a classroom full of men. Unfortunately, gender stereotypes were alive and well in 1958, as Bowen soon learned. People frequently stated that her chosen career would ruin her.
Bowen brushed off their judgment and followed her own heart. That meant plenty of socializing and a busy dating schedule on top of classes and studying. But after two years at Graceland, Bowen started to question her path. For one thing, she was earning Bs in her courses, which made the possibility of medical school less likely.
“Guys could get into medical school with Cs, but girls had to go above and beyond,” Bowen says. “That was very discouraging.”
Secondly, she was having doubts about squashing the bubbly, voluble side of her personality.
“At that time, you either had a career as a spinster doctor or you had a family—you couldn’t have both,” Bowen explains. “I thought to myself, ‘Do I really want to do this?’”
The answer, ultimately, was no. Bowen regrouped, transferred to Iowa State and enrolled in the home economics program. It might sound like a huge transition to shift into home ec from pre-med, but it really wasn’t. There were plenty of food science courses, and Bowen took all of them. She ended up meeting her future husband at Iowa State, and they both pursued Ph.D.s at Cornell University; he in physics and she in nutrition.
“I found that I could have a family and still have the intellectual life that I wanted,” Bowen says. “Even when I was pre-med, I was always more interested in the research side of things.”