Pauline Tompkins

Pauline "Polly" Tompkins (March 5, 1918 - November 19, 2004) was the first woman President of Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the United States and a pioneer in American education and women's education.

Tompkins was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin and graduated from Pine Manor College in 1938 and Mount Holyoke College in 1941, Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D. from Tufts University in 1948. She was general director of the American Association of University Women from 1959 to 1967. She was appointed by President Johnson to the nine-member United States Advisory Commission on International Education and Cultural Affairs in 1964. She was chairman of the board of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from 1974 to 1976.