COED WEEK: A Taste of the Future?
FOR SIX DAYS, from Wednesday, January 22, to Monday, January 27, women were officially part of the Dartmouth scene. Nearly a thousand coeds from 18 campuses came to Hanover to participate in the second annual Coed Week. The student-initiated program, under the chairmanship of Donald B. Elitzer '69, was part of a continuing student effort to bring coeducation to the College. Shortly before Coed Week, the Dartmouth Campus Conference, a Trustee-administration-student forum, had recommended that the Board of Trustees authorize a special task force to study the question of coeducation.
Most of the girls participating in Coed Week were housed in rooms set aside for them in the 19 participating dormitories, but some stayed with families in Hanover. All the visitors were able to eat in Thayer Hall.
According to Chairman Elitzer, the experiment was "academically oriented," and the coeds were provided with special course directories and encouraged to attend classes. Professors from about 15 departments met with girls who want to return to Dartmouth as special or exchange students next year and explained the content and procedures of such programs.
Although Coed Week was viewed by most participants as too short to be an accurate reflection of coeducation, they did feel that it provided some chance for students from monosexual colleges to meet members of the opposite sex on a casual basis and view them as friends rather than exclusively as weekend dates. One Dartmouth man summed up the feelings of many when he remarked, "It was just great seeing girls around."
Registration in the Top of the Hop was a crowded affair.
A standard student jacket on a non-standard form.
This dorm bull session was doubtless along more genteel lines.
The male and female minds jointly tackle a design problem
Some worked hard in the library ...
And others took to the ski slopes.
Meals in Thayer Hall (left) and snacks at Hopkins Center (right) seemed to be more enjoyable in mixed company.
Art draws no sexual lines.
What the well-dressed dorm occupant at Dartmouth usually doesn't wear.
Old friends possibly, but definitely friends.
A final discussion of what was good or bad about it ended Coed Week.
