The University became fully coeducational in 1972, following a 1969 court order requiring full coeducation within three years. As a transitional period, the University began admitting a small percentage of women in 1970. This shift towards coeducation was a drawn-out process within American higher education — Oberlin College became the first university to open its doors to women in 1837 and the University of Iowa became the first coeducational public university in 1847. However, many private colleges remained all-male until the latter half of the 20th century, and the University was the last public institution to allow women when it began full coeducation in 1972.
As the University moved towards coeducation, women also began to join The Cavalier Daily. The first female Editor-in-Chief was elected in 1976, and since then, many women have passed through The Cavalier Daily’s doors and graduated to pursue successful and impactful careers within their respective fields.
From the Chief Executive Officer of The New York Times, a White House Communications Director, a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature journalist for the Tampa Bay Times and a Health and Science Editor for The Washington Post, these are the women who have shaped The Cavalier Daily’s past and lead its future.
The Cavalier Daily spoke with Class of 1993 alumna Meredith Kopit Levien, Class of 2004 alumna Kate Bedingfield, Class of 1989 alumna Lane DeGregory and Class of 1986 alumna Mary-Ellen Deily about their time at the paper and how their experiences at the University led them to pursue their future careers and passions.
Memories from The Cavalier Daily
As they began their time at the University, each of these women chose to join the paper because of a personal interest in writing and reporting. They shared similar stories of the excitement they felt working with other writers and editors in a newsroom environment.
DeGregory had a lifelong interest in journalism and chose to attend the University particularly because of the opportunity she would have to work at a student-run paper. Even before she started her first year, DeGregory remembers visiting The Cavalier Daily’s office during a prospective student tour. She would eventually join the news desk as a writer and go on to become News Editor and, in her fourth year, Editor-in-Chief.
Bedingfield, who wrote for both the news and sports desks at The Cavalier Daily, joined the paper because of a personal connection to journalism — her father was a journalist and had always emphasized the importance of following news and current events.
“I really wanted to be involved in everything that was going on on [Grounds], and I felt like being part of The Cavalier Daily was a way to really tap into so many different elements of what was going on on Grounds,” Bedingfield said.
During their time on the paper, these women were inspired by their peers, who were equally passionate about The Cavalier Daily’s mission. Bedingfield has fond memories from working on the paper — she particularly admired her sports editor, who became a mentor and an encouraging force in her life. Some of her favorite memories are of late nights in the newsroom with other writers as they fed off of each other’s energy and adrenaline.
Levien, who wrote for the opinions desk and later joined the advertising staff in her fourth year, felt a deep sense of community with her peers on the paper. While she participated in a variety of extracurricular activities at the University, she felt that her most formative experience was at The Cavalier Daily.
“The people were extraordinary. I did lots of other things [on Grounds], but I found the people on The Cavalier Daily to be so rich in substance and interest in the world, and serious about who they were and what their contributions could be,” Levien said.
Similarly, one of the things Deily — who worked on the news desk, as News Associate Editor and later as a Features Editor — enjoyed most about working for the paper was the newsroom atmosphere and being surrounded by students who were just as interested as she was in the University’s news. She also enjoyed working as a beat writer on the Honor Committee, where she covered several debates over replacing the single sanction system of expulsion.
“At the time, I was just churning out stories, there was just so much going on,” Deily said. “I remember … racing back to the [office], typing up my stories there, and it felt very much like breaking news, very fresh and new.”
Bedingfield was particularly impacted by one of the first articles she wrote, about a robbery at a local gas station.
“I remember covering that story as a news reporter, and feeling the weight [and] the responsibility of covering an event that had a meaningful impact on the owners of the gas station,” Bedingfield said. “I just felt the responsibility of needing and wanting to get it right, and I felt like I was getting to play an important and significant role in the community.”
DeGregory also remembers an article she found interesting to work on — a feature on former nude model Patricia Kluge, who was appointed to the Board of Visitors in 1990 and lived in Charlottesville with her husband John Kluge, at the time the wealthiest man in the United States. Many of the men on the Board were dismissive of Kluge, and writing that article led her to reflect on women’s changing positions within the world.
“It was interesting. I think I was the second or third female editor of the paper,” DeGregory said. “To have a woman in the spaces of news reporters and a woman on the Board of Visitors was an interesting time.”
Life after The Cavalier Daily
While these women graduated to follow different career paths, writing for the paper impacted all of their future careers — whether they pursued journalism or a different path.
Today, Bedingfield has over 20 years of experience within political and corporate communications. Following her graduation from the University, she was eager to work in politics and contribute to initiatives she cared most about.
“I really wanted to pursue a career in politics and in communications, in part so that I could continue to tap into what is most interesting and exciting about journalism — feeling connected to what's going on in the world and feeling like a part of something meaningful,” Bedingfield said.
DeGregory’s career path differed slightly from Bedingfield’s. While earning her master’s degree from the University, she worked at the University’s news office, which led her to realize she was not interested in a career in communications. Following graduation, DeGregory worked at local Virginia newspapers until 2000, when she began working at the Tampa Bay Times.
Similarly to DeGregory, Deily knew she wanted to pursue a career in journalism after graduation. After returning home to Annapolis, she worked as a reporter for her local newspaper, the Eastern Star Democrat, and felt a natural transition to this newsroom after working for The Cavalier Daily — writers and editors had the same work ethic and passion for their work.
Following graduation, Levien initially did not aim to work in the news industry and instead began her career at the Advisory Board Company, until eventually she realized that her passion lay in the field of journalism. As she began to pursue this inspiration, she joined The Atlantic as an advertising director, and hasn’t looked back since.
“24 years later, every day that I spent representing high quality journalism in the world, either working directly on the business of it or really working to say what is the right and the sustainable path for high quality journalism to have a bright future, it just feels so organic to my being,” Levien said. “I feel like I am doing exactly what I should be doing.”
Bedingfield would later go on to serve as Communications Director for the White House from 2021 to 2023. Reflecting back on her career, Bedingfield said her time working for President Biden was the most interesting position of her career and an invaluable experience. She particularly enjoyed the process of learning how to put global issues into context, and was inspired by the work she did with experts in these fields.
“The opportunity to be at the center of everything that is going on in the United States government and in many ways in the world, is a moment that is invaluable,” Bedingfield said.
Throughout her career, DeGregory has continued to write feature and human interest stories focused primarily on highlighting individuals who are often overlooked in the media. In 2009, she earned a Pulitzer Prize for her work titled “The Girl in the Window,” which shares the adoption story of a young girl who was abused and neglected throughout the first six years of her life.
“I like writing about people in the shadows, people that not everybody writes about,” DeGregory said. “It gives me a chance to show readers people who are affected by policies. Not just what's happening at the city council or the state legislature. But here are the people that are being impacted by that, and I think that has its own merit.”
Today, Levien represents The New York Times as CEO and president. While she also loves to create and write, she feels that her work on the business side of media is her ideal role. Throughout her career, she has worked to engage citizens in high-quality journalism through her creative initiatives. At The Times, she has worked to incorporate a variety of content, such as lifestyle and games, with the hopes that this content will draw in a diverse audience and spark their interest in the news content the paper also produces.
“I see [my] work as really trying to understand what the reporters and editors and people who make journalism at The New York Times and other high quality institutions are trying to do, and then figuring out how to represent that to the world in a way that makes more people see high quality independent journalism as good and fair and relevant to them,” Levien said.
After spending nearly 20 years at Education Week, a nonprofit news organization focused on K-12 education, Deily joined The Washington Post. In 2022, Deily began her current role as Health and Science Editor, a position which reminds her of her time as Features Editor for The Cavalier Daily — many of the pieces she works on are human interest stories.
“The human interest stories hark back to my days in the feature section of The Cavalier Daily, where you're trying to help [writers] define the story,” Deily said. “...I'm not trying to rewrite it in my voice. I'm trying to refine what other reporters send to me so it tells the story.”
Balancing career with motherhood
Each of these women have led successful careers, while also raising their children, and spoke to the challenges of balancing these two roles.
Bedingfield, a mother of two, said this factored into her decision to leave her role as White House Communications Director in 2023 despite how much she had loved the position.
“If you're fortunate enough to have people around you who support you, and you love your job, and you love your children, you just make enough hours in the day to make it work, but it's very hard,” Bedingfield said.
DeGregory, a mother of two, also spoke about her experience maintaining a full-time career while being present for her children. As a feature writer, she often works weekends or evenings in order to spend time with the people she writes about. While she missed out on some events, DeGregory was also able to bring her children on assignments and share her work with them — through this, she was able to share a wide range of perspectives with them.
“I think they were really able to realize how middle class we are, how middle of humanity we are,” DeGregory said. “I write about a lot of sick people, injured people, poor people, people who have been hurt. And I think it made my kids feel like, ‘oh, there's a whole stratosphere of people that are more needy.’”
Advice for younger generations
Looking back at the beginning of their careers, these women reflected on their experiences since graduation.
DeGregory hopes young journalists will continue to follow their passions and work on projects that they care deeply about, even if it means working late nights.
“I wish that I had been braver when I was a young journalist, and I wish I had thought about what kind of stories I wanted to tell,” DeGregory said. “You're going to get many assignments that you don't want to do, that hopefully you'll still do a really good job at. But always have something you’re passionate about … that's what keeps you fueled.”
Deily spoke about the changing media landscape and the importance of journalism in connecting communities around common issues. Today, media outlets face revenue and funding challenges due to declining readership of traditional news — local news outlets have been particularly impacted by these issues.
“I think we've lost a lot by losing local news outlets, because they covered so many things that were important to people's day to day lives,” Deily said. “That saddens and worries me, because that's how journalists can get their start, and also how readers stay informed and stay invested in truth and legitimate journalism.”
Levien, who works directly to build a sustainable business model for The Times, cited a complete transformation of the news industry over the past 25 years and a resulting collapse of business models for many newspapers as the cause for current challenges faced by the industry. As to the industry’s future, Levien believes in the importance of protecting independent journalism and freedom of the press, as well as ensuring that the public understands the importance of the media.
“A huge area of focus is [the way in which] it's getting increasingly hard for reporters and editors just to do their work,” Levien said. “There are all kinds of encroachments on press freedom, broadly defined, and The Times is deeply committed to holding power to account in whatever format that takes, and also making sure that the public understands the role of an independent press.”
In reference to the challenges today’s media industry faces, DeGregory offered advice for aspiring journalists and encouraged them to continue writing.
“I'm so proud of young journalists who still want to do this job in the wake of what the climate is for journalists these days,” DeGregory said. “I just want to say, keep the faith, because we need you more than ever.”
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