Women of Dartmouth

Stories of coeducation, and other ms.cellany.

Engendered Species

I have read much of the March issue with considerable gratification as one who supported the admission of women. However, I was disappointed by the absence of any comment about a fact that, to me, was of some consequence. The (all male) Class of 1944, at its 25th reunion in 1969, voted by a considerable majority to endorse the admission of women. Perhaps this was because most of us had daughters who were excluded and were looking forward to the graduations of our granddaughters!

Cleveland, Ohio

The March issue with its emphasis on women at Dartmouth and their many "firsts" was impressive. A cherished souvenir in our apartment is a 19-inch ridgetop ski with a silver plate reading: "Dartmouth Winter Carnival—l 936— Girls Slalom Race won by Patty McLane." Patty McLane, Smith '37, a fewyears later became my wife. She will be with me at our 60th reunion in June.

Was that slalom race on the golf course in Hanover the first all-women's event at Dartmouth? We like to think so.

PETERBOROUGH, NEW HAMPSHIRE

It may have been—at least the first officialevent. According to Outing Club historianDavid Hooke '84, the first ski weekend of the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association (whichincluded clubs at Smith, Holyoke, Vassar, andRadcliffe) held at Dartmouth was, indeed, thewinter of 1936. The annual event moved to theRavine Lodge three years later. Ed.

Women guests in dormitories were first allowed in 1935-36, not 1946 as stated in the article ("Dartmouth Herstory", March). At that time Dean Lloyd Neidlinger '23 formed an undergraduate inter-dormitory committee as a companion to the existing inter-fraternity council. It was hoped to improve dormitory lifestyles and study atmosphere. As a quid pro quo for working to reduce such things as fire-hose fights and other rowdyism, this committee convinced the dean to allow women guests in dormitories during specific hours on weekends. Although fraternities were allowed to house women during house parties (the men removing themselves to bunk-out elsewhere) and always with adult chaperones in residence, dormitories had been completely out-of-bounds.

This request was approved, provided the women guests were logged in, and out, with one of the dorm's four committee members, and provided the room door was open at all times during the guest's presence therein. World War II temporarily interrupted this "progress" which was re-in-stituted in 1946, as reported in the AlumnaeMagazine article.

How do I know? I was the first chairman of the Inter-dormitory Committee.

Edward T. Chamberlain Jr. '36 New London, New Hapshire

I was surprised that your section on Dartmouth women in sports missed a very special Olympic contender and Dartmouth almumna: Cameron (Cammy) Myler '92. Not only has Cammy been to the Olympics three times to compete in luge, she was chosen to carry the American flag in the opening ceremonies of the last Winter Olympics. Last time I heard, she was captain of the American team, which has improved its performance significantly in the last year.

All her siblings from Alpha Theta, and doubtless many of her other classmates, are very VERY proud of her.

San Francisco, California StephMDSC@AOL.COM

Your pantheon of hero(in)es on pages 18-19 (March) is truly inspiring, but you commit an injustice to Dartmouth women's history through two omissions: Priscilla Frechette (first woman to serve as a Trustee), and the women of the class of '76: all brave pioneers who deserve recognition for their courage and tenacity.

Cambridge, Mass. RBERC@BU.EDU

In your recent chronological highlights of women at Dartmouth, you included the all-women's play You Laugh for 1975. My understanding was that the 1975 graduation was the first to include women who had been at the College for four full years. Isn't this a much more important milestone?

Cummaquid, Massachusetts

Before the class of 1976, "women started outas transfer students, not freshmen. —Ed.

The song "Our Cohogs" made its debut at Green Key Weekend in 1975, not 1977. This is immortalized on page 37 of the 1975 Aegis, with evidence on the song list on my classmate's chest. This was the last term of the last class of men who entered an all-male institution. This was also the last class to watch their classmates drafted and sent to die in Southeast Asia. Perhaps the last to exercise their first amendment rights before the advent of political correctness at Dartmouth. Let them not be judged by 1997 standards.

It was not always a picnic for us in the first class of women. Some things a lot worse than "Our Cohogs" happened. However, Dartmouth offered many wonderful adventures and opportunities. Some of these young men were our true friends, lovers, and future husbands, and they reflected the sentiments of a society in slow, but certain, revolution. For some of us, this education has served us well in professional environments, where such sentiments are not as playful as the Boys from the Boom-Boom Lodge. I learned the poise to continue on when, despite awards for my performance, I overheard my boss say, "Back in the good old days when men were men and women were secretaries." Education should prepare women for the intellectual and emotional realities of the world. Mine at Dartmouth, despite or because of such fraternity antics, continues to serve me well.

Sierra Vista, Arizona

The group of women pictured at the top of page 35 (March) was known as the "Distractions." In 1974 we had separate glee clubs for the men and women, and each had its own director. I'm not even sure they toured together. I say that because I remember going to Concord with just the women for the club's annual dinner.

Hanover, New Hampshire

My father was, or rather, is a '55 who did not want his daughter to attend his alma mater, because it was a "boys'" school. He wanted me to attend Mount Holyoke.

When I was looking at colleges, I was pretty certain Dartmouth was my top choice because they had the programs I wanted, especially the LSA/FSP programs. My mother and I visited one women's college for open house. We sat at the opening speech by the president of the college. The president said that single-sex education was extremely valuable because women learned to compete with each other before going out into the real world and competing with men. I turned to my mother and told her that I was going to have to compete with men for my entire life, so I might as well learn now. I told her I wasn't attending this college, I was going to Dartmouth.

The night before I graduated, my dad told me, "I never understood why you wanted to go to Dartmouth, but you seem to have done okay."

In your March issue, I appreciated seeing the photo and paragraphs on Delo Mook and Priscilla Sears's class. I was a member of their first seminar—but only because a male friend of mine convinced me I could. I was personally convinced I was a science idiot, due to a bad physics class in high school. That experience is why I plug the Women in Science Program when I interview potential undergrads. Mentoring, encouragement—especially in the sciences—makes a difference!

New York, N.Y. Pjhuff97@AOL.COM

I LOVED the Women of Dartmouth Issue. And I especially loved that one man you recognized, Mrs. Kemeny's husband. I remember voting in the student referendum on co-education my freshman year and wondering if the crusty old alums and Trustees really cared what we students thought. I knew that those of us living the Dartmouth Experience at the time knew that it would be better with women. I was married at the time—didn't need a date but we all knew that the time had come. We knew that coeducation wasn't such a radical idea. We were the last Ivy school to admit women. I'm glad to see such moving evidence that it was the right thing to do.

Bloomington, Indiana Grostone@AOL.COM

At the risk of being ostracized by my classmates, I am writing to congratulate you on your splendid Alumnae Magazine. It was probably one of the best I have ever read. Maybe you'll try it again some time.

Duxbury, Massachusetts

I am writing regarding the timeline in the Alumnae issue. Steve and Susan Stetson were not the only first undergraduate married couple. We were married in 1970 and also graduated together in '73. Patsy attended Dartmouth as a "special student" for the two years prior to coeducation. She then matriculated for her senior year.

We would also like to add that Hanover High School girls were taking regular classes for credit at Dartmouth as early as 1961.

Salisbury, Maryland

FJCX84B@PRODIGY.COM

I found the issue both informative and insightful. However, I did not see an acknowledgment of early African-American women's presence in relation to Eleazar Wheelock, the Moor's School, Hanover, or Dartmouth. Several historic works record this presence between 1743-1878. Although there is no documentation on the formal education of African-American women during this period, Eleazar, Mary, and John Wheelock were known to have owned some 20-plus enslaved African Americans. Approximately 13 of these were women. Some of these women died enslaved, others gained their freedom, but I wonder what part these women had in maintaining and educating Moor's School and Dartmouth students.

This may be a more difficult part of Dartmouth's history to discuss or think about, but it's a part that should not be overlooked or forgotten.

Iowa City, Iowa

Your chronology omits a 1958 petition that asked the Board of Trustees to study the possibility of coordinate education (meaning a separate but affiliated institution) at Dartmouth. A thin majority of the full-time teaching faculty signed in favor. The petition also offered an opportunity to sign against the study. One professor who took advantage of that opportunity was the chairman of the mathematics department, John Kemeny.

The signed copies of the petition were presented to the Trustees in June of 1958. (I have copies, including the famous one with Kemeny's signature opposing even a study of some form of coordinate education.) Had the petition called directly for coordinate education (as opposed to a study of it) or a study of coeducation (instead of some form of coordinated education), it would have failed.

The 1958 petition also was offered to the student body, with considerably less success. The students would have agreed with the senior class of 1936 and the survey respondents in 1967: "No way!"

A huge change in attitudes evidently was taking place between 1967 and 1970, when the percentage of student supporters went from 11 percent to 83 percent.

It burns me to read in the '76 class notes that anyone considered Kemeny a "shining star." A better metaphor would be a moon. Kemeny was a social leader only in the sense that he was adept in figuring out where the crowd was headed and getting out in front of it. If you're looking for shining stars, consider Hugh Morrison (art) and John Masland (government), especially Morrison. He had the courage to crusade for social justice when it was an unpopular cause.

Wheaton, Illinois

As one of the older alumni, I was initially skeptical about the wisdom of the college's going coeducational. Samson Occom's mother may have had a role in the matter, but I take some indirect credit for the change.

In 1965, attending my 35th reunion and impressed by John Kemeny's administrative potentials as he spoke to reuning classes, I offered him the academic vicepresidency of the University of Rhode Island, of which I was then president. He considered the matter, but the next day declined the position, indicating he did not want to become an administrator. In 1970, as president, he autographed my copy of The College on the Hill: "For Fran Horn '30, who first started me thinking about the job of college president,"

Kingston, Rhode Island

I feel compelled to clarify the true origin of the "Dartmouth Plan." In 1967, my roommate Richard Gass '68 was one of two students on the College long range planning committee. I saw Richard's access to the corridors of influence as an opportunity to devise some plan for coeducation.

I suggested to him that by adding a summer session of 10-12 weeks which would easily fit into the trimester schedule, the College could immediately add one-third more students without adding any significant expenditures to the capital budget, and without alienating the older alumni who feared that the admission of women would reduce the number of men. I also thought this plan would allow students to take their "summer" vacations at different times of the year and provide alternative "summer experiences."

Richard presented this idea to the committee, and I believe it was out of that committee that the Dartmouth Plan was born. (It may be that the plan was coincident with other plans that had been previously made.) If my belief is accurate, the true origins of the Dartmouth Plan arose from the students.

I now have a daughter who will be graduating from high school shortly. Should she choose to apply to Dartmouth and be accepted, I will be pleased that at least some of my efforts, while not of a direct benefit to me while I was at Dartmouth, will accrue to my daughter.

Ppovidence, Rhode Island RELORIN@EDGENET.NET

I enjoyed your Alumnae issue and the mention of Godey's Lady's Book editor Sarah Josepha Hale. Your readers might like to know that her early home was in Newport, New Hampshire, not too far from Hanover. That is where she studied her brother's Dartmouth texts.

Ms. Hale did many remarkable things: she organized a women's fair to complete raising funds for the Bunker Hill Monument; her support enabled the Mount Vernon Ladies Association to purchase the Washington home; and she persuaded Matthew Vassar to name his school Vassar College and not Vassar Female College.

It is likely that she did not write the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb," though she included the verse in a collection of children's songs she edited.

New Orleans, Louisiana

I was fascinated with your March edition celebrating the admission of women to Dartmouth. I am curious why Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and Wellesley, to name three esteemed women's colleges, are still restricted to women only? Could they know something we don't know?

Hanover, New Hampshire

Forty years ago a young male graduate with high credits from a good secondary school had a wide choice of institutions of higher learning, including Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale; the Ivy League schools with associated women's colleges such as Harvard-Radcliffe, Brown-Pembroke, and Columbia-Barnard; and the excellent coed Ivy League schools Pennsylvania and Cornell; smaller but excellent all-male schools such as Amherst, Williams, and Bowdoin; and fine coed state institutions such as Virginia and Vermont

Today the choice is not only limited but almost wiped out. Is this educational progress? I don't think so.

In the ante Kemeny days Dartmouth was a small all-male school but, dear sir, there are those who loved it.

PORTLAND, MAINE

Dartmouth is the era of politicization in a young person's life. My eyes were opened that first fall when faux-bloody tampons were thrown in protest. I found it energizing to see Womyn's Review meetings overflowing into the hall, and to have a distinctly female space at the Women's Resource Center. This energy encouraged me to mobilize around women's issues.

By senior year, the Womyn's Review meetings attracted few comers. But students had become aware that language has the power to reinforce stereotypes and had begun to think carefully before they spoke.

Then we were thrown out to the streets, where people are not so aware. We cannot lose the energy to protest when women's rights are being violated. We each have responsibility to promote tolerance and to raise awareness in pursuit of social justice, to reach out to those who do not have a voice, who do not have the luxury to debate the words of an old College song.

Washington, DC

As a member of the first graduating class with women ('73) and a proud resident of the Choate Road complex during that period, I'm pleased that the goal of "sexblind" admissions has finally been achieved. Education and educational challenges should be blind to students' personal characteristics.

My best wishes and sincere congratulations to both the women and men of Dartmouth in coming further to achieving the goal of tolerance and understanding of others.

San Francisco, California M.HOFMAN@INTERNETMCI.COM

My house (Phi Tau) prides itself for being the first (or one of the first) fraternities at Dartmouth to admit women. Some forward-thinking brother made a point of writing Phi Tau's constitution without referring to "men" specifically, only Dartmouth students. So when Dartmouth finally decided to admit woman, it was only natural for Phi Tau to include them also.

However, specific information about the inclusion of the first women into the house is lacking in house history. This in itself could imply that the coeducation occurred without many problems. On the other hand, some houses must not have taken to coeducation so easily. Alpha Theta reverted back to single-sex for a time after going coeducational. And didn't Gamma Delta go coed for a period of time? It would be interesting to read about the women who pioneered entering not only Dartmouth, but also Dartmouth's fraternities.

Pembroke, New Hampshire Broggi@AOL.COM

Do we really need "70 courses that cover gender issues or feminist analysis" ("Beyond Parity," March)? I thought a quality undergraduate education was crowded enough without the diluting excess of gender-based PC. One of the "11 Most Influential Women" is "a selfprofessed radical feminist"? Do we have any "self-professed radical male chauvinist" faculty who would dare to publicly anoint themselves as such? I think not. At worst, the presence of either extreme is antithetical to rigorous intellectual development and is gender-divisive at best. Yet in the midst of this madness, tattered vestiges of rational thought appear. You quote the enlightened engineering professor Ursula Gibson '76, who "questions the wisdom of providing different science experiences for men and women." She further states, "When I was here, I felt like an individual, I judged others as individuals, and for the most part I think I was judged that way. It's almost as if the pendulum has gone past the ideal point." Almost past the ideal point, indeed!

Park City, Utah

Characters

You missed a fictional Dartmouth Alum ("A Bunch of Characters," January) who actually has a college structure named after him. As movie viewers saw, Dr. Trapper John Mclntyre, of M*A*S*H fame, attended Dartmouth and played football. Readers of M*A*S*H Goes ToMaine, by Richard Hooker (1973) found out that he also was an active member of the DOC. That same year the Outing Club responded by naming the new shelter at Holt's Ledge the Trapper John Shelter, which it remains to this day. From the book: "As an undergraduate, Dr. McIntyre had been an enthusiastic member of the Dartmouth Outing Club. While serving as an army surgeon in Korea he had learned to fly helicopters. He intended secretly to fly to the top of Mount Everest and implant the banner of the Dartmouth Outing Club where it could be discovered by Sir Edmund Hillary, or whoever got there second. A variety of technical, financial and other problems had frustrated this ambition, so he'd settled for burning down the officers' latrine."

NASHUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE METSKY@ZK3.DEC.COMIKE IN CONTEXT

Let me add another Dartmouth character to Jane Hodges's list: Robert Culp, Second Lieutenant., Fourth (Weapons) Platoon commander in James Jones's Guadalcanal novel, The Thin Red Line. Distinguishing trait: "the typical uncomplicated happy-go-lucky college football player." Dartmouth mention: "Young Lt. Culp of the weapons platoon, who was a former Dartmouth football player and was always laughing and kidding around with the men." Quote: "I never felt a thing!... Didn't hurt at all!" It's a great book.

Austin, Texas

The Record, Straight

"Still on the Freedom Trail" ("Syllabus," January) contains two errors. Jamestown was founded in 1607, not 1619 (someone is perhaps thinking of the arrival of the first African slaves). And the Constitutional Convention sat from May to September of 1787, having been called by the Annapolis Convention of 1786.

El Cerrito, California

Looking for a Friend

For -a number of years I have had the pleasure of jogging in Central Park when staying over in Manhattan on business On numerous occasions, while jogging on the east side of the park, in the high seventies or low eighties, an older man has noticed my Dartmouth sweatshirt (it's the only way to run) and identified himself as a '42.

On my last several trips I have looked forward to seeing him—but to no avail. Where, oh where, is this lost '42?

Washington, D.C. RBURKA@FOLEYLAW.COM

Mascots (Continued)

As an American Indian graduate, I have found the search for replacing "The Big Green" interesting. I am also a graduate of the Vietnam survival school. As a "point man" for my company, the title carried with it connotations of heroism, self-sacrifice, and leadership. It is also a much used business title referencing a project leader. Perhaps a non-gender variation could be considered such as "Point Guard." I could see some very interesting caricatures for the school mascot arising from the positive implications of the name that would put the American Indian T-shirt caricature to shame.. It would not be necessary to include the color as a part of the title. Nobody ever used the expression "The Green Indians." It is a beautiful color, though, and the last and brightest of nature's colors as the world turns to darkness.

Milltown, New Jersey DIAL911@EROLS.COM

Heaven

Often I've asked students how they liked Dartmouth. Everyone would give me practically the same sort of response. If it were a male student answering, he would say, "It's great." If a coed was replying, her practically unanimous reply would be, "I love it." It got boring. One day last week, however, I encountered a group of seniors. Wondering if the same attitude toward their alma mater persisted, I asked one, and she gave me the old, familiar reply, "I love it." One of her classmates threw me a curve ball. She said, "If there's any place nearer heaven, I want to go there.

Norwich, Vermont