Harriette L. Chandler

Harriette (Harlee) L. Chandler ‘83MBA (born 1937) is a retired Massachusetts State Senator (for the 1st Worcester District) and the 94th President of the Massachusetts Senate. She made history by becoming the first woman to be elected Senator of her District. Chandler’s interest in politics emerged from her passion for education. From 1991 to 1994, she served on the Worcester School Committee. As Chandler told Simmons News in a recent interview, “One of the things I learned at Simmons was to make up your mind and just do it, so I did. I ran for the school committee and won an outstanding victory. They had not had a woman on the committee in a number of years.”

As a politician, Chandler prioritized women’s rights and health. One of her crowning achievements is the Roe Act. “When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, we knew there wasn’t much time left to protect the women of Massachusetts. The main point of the bill was to enshrine into law the right to an abortion for the women of Massachusetts,” she conveyed to Simmons News. Senator Chandler’s political legacy is, therefore, unprecedented and profound.