Joanne Darken, then an instructor at Temple University and now at the Community College of Philadelphia, stood up at the meeting and suggested that the women present remain and form a caucus.

I have been able to document six women who remained: me (I was a graduate student at Maryland at the time), Joanne Darken, Mary [W.] Gray (she was already at American University), Diane Laison (then an instructor at Temple), Gloria Olive (a Senior Lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand, who was visiting the U.S. at the time) and Annie Selden...It's not absolutely clear what happened next, except that I've personally always thought that Mary was responsible for getting the whole thing organized ....'".

[4] Mary W. Gray was the early organizer, placing an advertisement in the February 1971 Notices of the AMS, and writing the first issue of the AWM Newsletter that May.

Again as reported by Lenore Blum, "What I remember hearing about Mary [W.] Gray and the Atlantic City Meetings, indeed what perked my curiosity, was an entirely different event, one that was also to alter dramatically the character of the mathematics community.

(Mary relates the story somewhat differently: When she was told she had to leave, she responded she could find no rules in the by-laws restricting attendance at Council meetings.

[4] She worked closely with her AU colleague, chemist Nina Roscher, to improve resources for women and minorities in mathematics and science and prevent them from dropping classes.

Dr. Mary Gray, trained as both a statistician and a lawyer, has made important contributions in the application of statistics in human rights, economic equality, legal issues, and education.

She is the author of two books and over eighty articles and has lectured throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, on these important topics."