Texas Womans Spring 2024 Magazine

1921
WWII pilot, June Ellington
Petto, stationed at the
Camp Davis Army Air Field
in North Carolina during
the war.
Photo: TWU Special Collections
TWU Libraries is home to
the official archive of the
Women Air Force Service
Pilots (WASPs).
> 2024
TWU will begin preparing
the next generation of
pilots Fall 2024.
Want to
know more?
Send us a note at
advancement@twu.edu
THEN AND NOW
THE SKY ISN'T
THE LIMIT
It’s our destination
TEXAS WOMAN’S
University has a long
connection to women
aviators. The TWU libraries'
Women’s Collection is a
repository of documents
and artifacts of the Women
Airforce Service Pilots
(WASP), and scholars come
to TWU to study the WASPs.
Now, TWU will prepare
pilots.
This fall, TWU will open
the Doswell School of
Aeronautical Sciences
to train new generations
of pilots. It’s a program
urgently needed to address
an international pilot
shortage. While senior pilots
were reaching mandatory
retirement, the airlines,
facing financial strain
because of the pandemic,
offered early retirement
to the next generation of
pilots. However, when the
world emerged from the
COVID shutdown, a pilot
deficiency was exposed.
The TWU program will
not just address that
scarcity, it will create a
more diverse group of
aviators. The school will
have its own aircraft and
conduct flying lessons from
a Denton-area airfield.
14 TEXAS WOMAN’S