Meta Glass

Meta Glass
Meta Glass circa 1940
3rd President of Sweet Briar College
In office 1925–1946
Preceded by	Emilie Watts McVea
Succeeded by	Martha B. Lucas
Personal details
Born	(1880-08-16)August 16, 1880 Petersburg, Virginia, U.S.
Died	March 20, 1967(1967-03-20) (aged 86) Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.
Alma mater	Randolph-Macon Woman's College Columbia University
Profession	educator, administrator

Meta Glass (August 16, 1880 – March 20, 1967) was an American classics scholar, educator, and college administrator. From 1925 through 1946 she was the third president of Sweet Briar College. She was also president of the Association of American Colleges and the American Association of University Women for several years.

Meta Glass was born in 1880 in Petersburg, Virginia to newspaperman and former Confederate Major Robert H. Glass and his second wife, Meta Sanford Glass.

She had several siblings, including Marion Glass Banister, the first female assistant treasurer of the United States. Her many half-siblings (children of Robert Glass and his first wife) included Edward Christian Glass (Lynchburg, Virginia's school superintendent for nearly five decades) and U.S. Senator and Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass (1858–1946).

Glass received an MA from Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1899. She also studied at Cornell University in 1903.

She earned a PhD degree in classics from Columbia University in 1913, although she had known no Greek before beginning that program. Between 1929 and 1946 she received eight honorary doctorates as well.

Upon graduating from Randolph-Macon Women's College, Glass taught for a year at the Wytheville female seminary, then taught a year at a similar institution in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, and then taught German for a year at her alma mater Randolph-Macon Women's College. She also taught Latin for four years at Roanoke High School.

She was then an instructor at Randolph-Macon Women's College for three years. She knew about the newly formed Sweet Briar College, but was told in 1906 that no positions were open. Shortly before completing her PhD at Columbia she gained a position as adjunct professor of Latin at Randolph-Macon Women's College in 1912.