More Women, A Larger Dartmouth?

Hoist between the Scylla of reducing the number of male students and the Charybdis of enlarging the College, the Alumni Council in June opted for the latter as the lesser evil. The members approved a resolution recommending to the Trustees that up to 25 additional women be admitted each of the next several years. The vote was 28 to 11, with a number of abstentions.

After a December session devoted almost exclusively to the male-female ratio, when their ad hoc committee's report was debated at length and finally "acknowledged" without acceptance, the councilors spent a June morning on the issue and then proceeded to other business.

Arthur E. Allen Jr. '32 presented the Enrollment and Admission Committee's report and offered its resolution — the one ultimately approved — urging the Trustees to adopt three guidelines: 1) maintaining the target figure of 775 freshman men while allowing the current target of 275 women to be increased by "up to 25 per year"; 2) reaffirming the selective process, with special consideration to be given to alumni legacies, college officer offspring, applicants with special extra- and cocurricular talents, minority applicants and others important to "the health of our greater society and to the 'educative mix' of the student body"; and 3) a reexamination of the results of the guidelines in 1981 and 1985.

Adoption of the guidelines, Allen predicted, would alter the ratio gradually from the present 3:1 to 2:1 by 1985. While Princeton and Yale anticipate just such a proportion under a sex-blind admissions policy, "we accomplish the same thing by plan," he commented.

Assuming normal attrition rates and a phase-out of exchange programs, the committee estimated that the additional women would increase enrollment from the current 4,023 to 4,205 by 1981 and 4,437 by 1985. They predicted a cost of $3 million in new facilities for the additional students, but conceded that the actual figure might be twice that. Salaries of necessary new faculty, they asserted, would be covered by the extra tuition fees. (In a responding memorandum to the Trustees, introduced at the request of committee member Charles T. Duncan '46, President Kemeny took exception to these figures as unrealistically low.)

In the ensuing debate, some councilors argued that any increase in the size of the College was too much. Several urged support of the resolution which they saw as a healing compromise. One equated approval of any set proportion with a vote for "nine more years of sex discrimination." Others contended that the proposals fulfilled the council's responsibility to present as accurate as possible a reflection of alumni opinion. The members sought from Trustee Chairman F. William Andres '29, who was present at the meeting, an indication of the direction of the board's thinking. He declined on the grounds that the Trustees were conscientiously conducting a full-year search for information and guidance from all quarters and that not even tentative judgment would be possible until all valid opinion had been considered.

Stanley H. Feldberg '46 proposed an amendment to the resolution indicating the council's recognition of the Trustees' ultimate responsibility for policies and policy changes and council support of whatever action the Board takes in January. Such a formal commitment was also urged by former New Hampshire Governor Walter J. Peterson Jr. '47, a member of the council who previously served as an ex officio Trustee. The consensus, however, was that such a move would be redundant. Council President Raymond J. Rasenberger '49 commented that the sense of the debate indicated a general recognition that the matter was a Trustee decision and that the minutes should reflect that sentiment.