Before the university opened, the State Legislature amended Cornell's charter on April 24, 1867 to specify alumni elected trustees. However that provision did not become operative until there were at least 100 alumni in 1872. Cornell was one of the first Universities to elect trustees by direct election. (Harvard was probably the first to shift to direct election of its Board of Overseers by alumni in 1865.) Cornell's first female trustee was Martha Carey Thomas (class of 1877), who the alumni elected while she was serving as President of Bryn Mawr College.