While they encountered many challenges as some of the first women to attend the College, five alumnae described their experience at the College in the 1970s as a generally positive one in a panel discussion on Friday night.
The two male panelists, who were Trustees when the Board of Trustees decided to coeducate the College, spoke about the history of the coeducation decision and its ramifications.
About 60 people, mostly women, attended the panel, "Stand as Sister Stands By Brother" held in Collis Common Ground Friday night as part of this year's Senior Symposium.
Walter Peterson '47, president of the University of New Hampshire, began the discussion by speaking about his experience as a Trustee of the College during the "tumultuous years of the '70s."
Peterson said alumni strongly opposed the decision based "on tradition and the narrow view of getting their sons and grandsons into Dartmouth College."
"It took awhile for them to realize that their daughters and granddaughters could now attend the College," he said.
The leadership of former College President John Kemeny was a major factor getting the vote for coeducation because he realized the "value of exchanging ideas with women," Peterson said.
Peterson said opponents of coeducation felt women would be dominated in class and professors would not be sensitive to them.
"The kind of women who came to Dartmouth at the time were not easily intimidated," he said. "The success of these five women panelists' careers is indicative of this statement."
Former College Trustee David Weber '65, an English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, said the faculty and student body were in favor of coeducation in 1971.
He said the predominant feeling at the time was summed up by a remark one male student made that an "all-male education is not consistent with a liberal education."
Weber confirmed that alumni were strongly against the idea.
Weber quoted one alumnus as saying, "our matriarchal and permissive society needs a strong, all-male college where young men learn to live with men, adjust to other men and congregate with men as they must in later life."
Donna Lynn Bascom '73, an entertainment law attorney and a member of the board of directors for the Hopkins Center and Hood Museum, spoke about her experiences as a "pioneer of coeducation."
Bascom, one of the first three women to receive a diploma from the College, said she loves Dartmouth, but it is a place "where I never quite belonged." Because, Bascom said, her memory of her experiences at the College is a "green haze," she read to the audience excerpts of the journal she kept while at Dartmouth. She described herself at the time as "a bit insecure and a little lonely."
But she said she has no regrets about attending Dartmouth because it "emotionally prepared me for the world, honed my intellect and made me tougher in a gentle sort of way."
Mary Donovan '74, assistant dean of Mercer Law School and a member of the Alumni Council from 1991-1994, spoke about both the enjoyable and the difficult times she had at Dartmouth.
Donovan spoke of the discomfort she felt living sandwiched between two floors of men in Butterfield Hall, where brothers in Beta Theta Pi fraternity would yell across the street to her and the other women on the floor.
"I dated a man at Dartmouth but we had to keep it a secret because his [fraternity] voted against the College becoming coed," Donovan said.
Donovan said "the faculty and administration were welcoming and supportive of us and asked us to serve on all sorts of committees because we were such a new phenomenon on campus."
"The social environment was not as hospitable. The minority that voted against us were a vociferous group. They referred to us as cohogs instead of coeds," she said.
Donovan said "every woman alum from the classes of '73, '74, and '75 that I have talked to experienced hostility from a male student or felt unwelcome or threatened at the time." But Donovan said "it was a positive experience overall and I would send my daughters and even sons to Dartmouth."
Christine Nicholson '74, an attorney, alumni counselor and chair of the Native American visiting committee, brought a box of her Dartmouth memorabilia to the panel.
She pulled out the Nov. 22, 1971 edition of The Dartmouth and read the headline, "Dartmouth to Admit Women."
She said looking back on this time, there was a great sense of "excitement and controversy."
Karen Turner '76 and Deborah Hope Wedgeworth '76 spoke about their experiences as the first African-American women to attend the College. They entered in a class of 250 women in which 30 women were African-American.
Turner is a professor at Temple University, a member of the Alumni Council and president of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association. She said coming to Dartmouth was a "sad, challenging and exhilarating experience."
"Because the upperclassmen resented my presence and the faculty members were not as warm and accepting as I had hoped, I had to grow up fast and come to terms with myself," Turner said.
"Being a female and African American, I felt like a double alien. I had eggs thrown at me, was called 'nigger' ... one student dressed up in a [Ku Klux Klan] outfit and stood outside Thayer," she said.
But she said she found support from the "small, black academic community" and said her time at the College was a positive experience.
"Attending the College was the best education for life skills and for academics," she said.
Wedgeworth, a director to the chief auditor of Citicorp bank and treasurer of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association, said she did not feel threatened as a female student. "I felt comfortable in an environment where the men outweighed women 20 to one," Wedgeworth said.
Wedgeworth said "from the perspective of an African-American student, I felt genuine ambivalence from the faculty and administration" and said she looked for support from other African-American students and faculty members.
"I only really appreciated Dartmouth after leaving," she said. "You can receive a challenging, rigorous academic education almost anywhere, but there is a closeness about Dartmouth," she said.
