Armstrong shrugs off her commitment to an overwhelming number of organizations and boards of the University

" Isn't it Woody Allen who said that 90 percent of life is just showing up?" More seriously, she continues, "I enjoyed renewing the contact with Harvard. I have had a long history of being interested in Harvard and one thing led to another."

Much has changed since her undergraduate years in the late 1940's, and she sees her involvement with the evolution of the University as "an energizing experience."

She mentions that it is a challenge "to maintain the change," and she is devoted to Harvard's "mission of education."

Armstrong, with her contemporary involvement with Harvard, has a unique perspective of the changes in the University over the years.

"I think that Harvard is a far more welcome and opening environment now," she says. "There seems to be a lot more integration than in my era and it seems a friendlier place. It was much more sink-or-swim in our day and now it is more obviously caring."

In addition to her work on the Board of Overseers, she has worked with standing committees dealing with Humanities and Arts and she is a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Committee to Examine and Review the Role and Status of Women Undergraduates.