1976

Dick Monkman is off in the Cook Islands at the time this column is due, and since this is a special edition about the first 25 years of women at Dartmouth, he asked Brewer Doran, NaomiBaline Kleinman, and Steffi Valar to do a guest spot for him.

In thinking about what we should write, what seemed most important to us was that as the first four-year coeducational class at Dartmouth, we witnessed a lot of firsts related to our stay there. As we spoke to a number of our women classmates, it became clear to us that as a group we had an overwhelmingly positive experience at Dartmouth which was reinforced by our position as "first class" and as the class which, in order to accommodate us, created ed the need for the Dartmouth Plan.

And we did have a lot of firsts! We had Sue Corderman-Clifford (she's married to Stu Clifford), who was the first woman to matriculate as a freshman. Ann FritzHackett was the first alumna to become a College Trustee. Judy Burroughs Csatari has brought us lots of firsts: The first Dartmouth/Dartmouth wedding and child. That child, Emily, has gone on to become Dartmouth's first double legacy and is now herself a "Woman of Dartmouth," as President Kemeny used to call us. President Kemeny was a shining star to all the women of 1976, and we were proud that we even had a Kemeny connection in our class: Jenny Kemeny, "first daughter." We have a world-class author, too, LouiseErdrich.

This is not to say that things were always so easy. Brewer remembers (in her own first, as female captain of a varsity sport) that even though we had to buy our own uniforms, all of us on the field hockey team were so proud of ourselves for even having a team at all. We were there, though, for the first women's intercollegiate athletic event in Dartmouth's history when Susan Walter, Sandy Helve, Ann Fritz-Hackett, Janet Sorice, Melinda Hungerford, and Pam Gile joined Brewer on the field for the varsity game against what was then Colby Jr.

Freshman year we weren't allowed in Glee Club, but by sophomore year we were, and several '76ers including Martha Hennessey, Sara HoaglandHunter, Jody Karp, and Julie Minerwent on to found the Dartmouth Distractions, the first female close harmony singing group on campus.

As we write this column, we are aware of all the many "firsts," both male and female, that our class has had. And we know that we are forgetting some, and that there are many others we don't know about. Therefore, we'd like to challenge you all to send your "firsts" to Dick Monkman, so that he can include one in each of his monthly columns. We were, and are, an historic class, and sometimes we need to remind ourselves.

Last, but not least, we are already planning to rally our fellow women classmates to set a fund-raising record (or two) for our 25th Reunion in 2001! Let's get 76 percent of the women in the class to donate to the Alumni Fund (the women's record is now 1980's 56.9 percent). And while we're at it, on the way to 2001, don't forget our coming Reunion this June, where we can break the record with only 60 percent participation! Got some other ideas? We'd love to hear from you!

; ;