As the president of a women's college, one of her many responsibilities was to publicly support female education. During her 36-year presidency, she worked to end the prejudice of the era that contended that women had a natural learning disability and that intellectual work negatively affected their health. Woolley began to have influence within the academic community, and she led cooperative efforts with other women's colleges to raise funds, academic standards and public consciousness for women's education. During Woolley's presidency, she built a strong faculty, attracting scholars from the most prestigious graduate schools by offering increased salaries, fellowships, and sabbaticals.