[3] At the age of sixteen, she began studying at the Rice Institute, where she would obtain her bachelor’s and masters' degrees in 1944 and 1945 (respectively), was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and spent two years teaching history to soldiers returning from World War II combat.
[4][5][3] After completing a two-year stint at Cornell University with a PhD in 1950, she returned to Rice and became the first woman there to be a full-time faculty member and to earn tenure.
[4][5] She served as chair of the Department of History and Political Science (1970–1980) and of Department of Art and Art History (1996–1998), as acting dean of humanities and social sciences (1973), and as the editor of Rice University Studies (1967–1981).
[4][3] In 2004, she published Magna Carta, a primary source collection concerning the English royal charter of the same name.
[5] On July 27, 1951, she married Ronald Farinton Drew, whom she had met as a Cornell student;[2][1] he died on January 10, 1990.