SOURCE: “A Life in Academia, Fighting Gender Bias,” in Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 1994, p. 13.

In the following favorable review of True North, Rubin examines Conway's academic perseverance and her tenacious approach to women's education reform.

One widely held perception that has long puzzled me is the assumption that academia is the last place a writer should look for interesting material. Certainly, Jill Ker Conway's account of her own academic career, set forth with admirable clarity and élan in True North: A Memoir, should do a lot to dispel this popular misconception.

Academia is not all that Conway, a former president of Smith College, writes about in this second volume of her memoirs begun in 1989 with publication of The Road from Coorain, a colorful portrait of the author's childhood in the isolated Australian outback, and her much-misunderstood passion for learning and intellectual achievement.

Like its predecessor, True North touches...