Twenty years ago, Dartmouth graduated the first women in its 203-year history.
The College enrolled 250 first-year women and 130 female transfer students in the fall of 1972, but it was a group of 34 senior women who became the first to receive diplomas from Dartmouth College.
They were pioneers in the tradition of Eleazer Wheelock. They entered a male-dominated culture and asked the loyal sons of Dartmouth to make room for the daughters of Dartmouth.
There was more to the change than just ripping the urinals out of some restrooms and painting a "wo" in front of the "men" on the door. The inclusion of women in the spring 1993 graduation ceremonies was really just a footnote to a year of sweeping changes that saw the implementation of the Dartmouth Plan and the challenging of a way of life at Dartmouth.
While most men at the College either welcomed women or did not openly resent them, there was a highly vocal minority that made it very clear what they thought about women matriculating here.
Jan Seidler Ramirez '73, a museum curator, recalls one night when a group of men ran through the halls of her dorm with hatchets screaming "co-hogs."
"There was no real effort by the college to consolidate women, and there were some practical problems such as no women's bathrooms," Ramirez recalls. "I spent many nights washing my socks in the urinals."
Since that time, women have come a long way at Dartmouth. From the introduction of sororities in the Greek system to the opening of a Women's Resource Center, women are no longer facing urinals in every bathroom or open hostility upon their enrollment.
The Class of 1997 will consist of 47 percent women, the closest Dartmouth has ever come to gender parity.
The 34 women of the Class of 1973 have gone into a variety of careers, and most felt Dartmouth prepared them for the challenges of the real world.
"[Dartmouth] was hard times," Donna Lynn Bascom '73, a former lawyer who is starting a film production and distribution company, said. "But I remember it as a wonderful place. Since I work in a male-dominated field, the experience at Dartmouth made me feel comfortable working with men."
