Women and Men of Dartmouth

A college is not truly coeducational until all of its students feel that they are full and etual citizens.

THIS YEAR DARTMOUTH is observing the 25th anniversary of coeducation. We were one of a large number of previously all-male colleges and universities that concluded in the early 1970s that educational quality, as well as institutional and national interest, required that we serve both male and female students.

Coeducation fundamentally changed the institution— and for the better. From talking to alumnae over the years, however, I am keenly aware that for many women the early years of coeducation at Dartmouth were not always pleasant ones. While some of the men who had matriculated at an all-male college welcomed coeducation and the presence of women students, others were tenacious in their opposition. Almost inevitably, periods of transition are difficult ones.

And yet those days passed. In 1982 Mary Ellen Donovan '76 would write in this magazine, "There is no...coeducation issue. There is coeducation.... Those who lived through the transition years may recall the changes as painfully slow and disruptive, but seen in terms of the life of the institution, they occurred relatively quickly and relatively smoothly."

Dartmouth learned a great deal in the process of coeducation. Some members of the community believed, consciously or unconsciously, that merely matriculating women would make the College coeducational. But, of course, a college is not truly coeducational until women students feel that they are as welcome there as men— until all of its students feel that they are full and equal citizens.

When I was inaugurated as president of Dartmouth ten years ago, the incoming first-year class was 38 percent female. That autumn the Board of Trustees voted that "in order to sustain an academic and social environment fully supportive of the educational mission of Dartmouth College, the Board of Trustees strongly endorses the administration's efforts to achieve more substantial parity in the number of men and women undergraduates applying to and matriculating at the College."

The class of 1998 is 48.2 percent female, and the class of 1999 actually numbers two more women than men. The classes of 2000 and 2001 are 47.5 and 49.1 percent female, respectively. I am gratified that substantial parity has now been achieved.

Not only has coeducation changed the composition of the undergraduate student body, it has changed the alumni/ae body as well. More than 17 percent of living Dartmouth graduates are women, and the mid-point of our alumni/ae body is now the class of 1973—an all-male class that experienced coeducation as students.

According to a survey of alumni attitudes done in 1994, the opinions of alumnae differ in important respects from those of both older and younger alumni. Alumnae are more likely to feel "very positively" toward Dartmouth. They are far more likely to say that it is "very important" to maintain cultural diversity on campus. They are far less likely to agree that "the existence of fraternities/sororities contributed in a positive way to their Dartmouth experience," and are more than twice as likely to disagree with the statement that the fraternity/sorority system contributes in a positive way to the well-being of the College today. They are far more likely to strongly agree that alcohol abuse among students is a serious problem at Dartmouth and that Dartmouth has a reputation as a heavy-drinking party school.

Dartmouth has come a long way in the last 25 years. The experience of women students today is, I feel confident, demonstrably better than that of many women in the early years of coeducation. Women occupy a large number of important student leadership positions. The Student Assembly presidents in 1993, 1994, and 1995 were all women. Four of the past six Green Key Society presidents have been women. The past two presidents of Casque & Gauntlet have been women, and Palaeopitus has been chaired or co-chaired by a woman for each of the past five years. Two of the last four presidents of The Dartmouth have been women. And the 1995,1997, and 1998 class presidents have all been women.

Issues still remain in social and residential life, particularly the limited number of places where women and men can gather to socialize on an equal footing—where women are not present as guests or invitees of men. But Dartmouth has been inventive about creating spaces where male and female students can interact with ease and a sense of shared ownership.

On the academic side, we strive to ensure that women are given an equal opportunity to thrive in their studies. Many academic departments, on their own and in conjunction with women's studies, have transformed certain of their courses so that male and female students puzzle together over how to value not only equality but also both difference and commonality. As an institution we continue to encourage women to enter fields, such as economics and chemistry, in which they have not been highly represented in the past.

The 25th anniversary of coeducation is an important time for us to celebrate the fact that men and women are working together to shape Dartmouth's participation in a remarkable historical movement toward equality between the sexes in education and public life in the United States. ■