I did not know this until much later in life - beyond freshman year, but my speaking out in Freshman English class, showed other young women that their voice could be heard, also. I do not remember my professor's name. She was a youngish woman, who probably did not have tenure, but she was desperately trying to get some discussion going about what I also do not remember. Probably it was politics since it was during the Voting Rights marches and the beginnings of Vietnam. In my brief two-year stay at a girls school in Philadelphia, I had learned to speak up, something I had learned not to do in my previous, small town, patriarchal and male-dominated high school.

So I raised my hand and got into a dialogue with my young professor.
Several years later, at a 5th or maybe 10th or later, reunion, several classmates came up to me and reintroduced themselves as being in that English class. Their words were that I had shown them that 'we' could speak and have opinions that mattered, that we could argue and talk with adults as if we were the beginning adults that we were, and that I had made them understand that. I remain proud of having done that.

Perhaps it is no longer needed, this demonstration of how to speak up and speak out. But in those days of the 1960's, it was a valuable lesson that I was more than happy to supply, albeit unknowingly!