To the Editor:
I am writing in response to The Dartmouth's erroneous statement that the College's commemoration of the 25th anniversary of coeducation consisted only of publishing a listing of already planned events [The Dartmouth, "Commencement Disappoints," April 3]. In fact, the commemoration began in the fall of 1996 with a number of programs marking the 25th anniversary of the decision to admit women to the College. Convocation this year featured speaker Louise Erdrich -- a distinguished alumna who was chosen, in part, because of the College's commitment to marking the coeducation anniversary. This fall, over 400 alumnae/i came back to campus for a Celebration Weekend that also involved hundreds of on-campus participants, including many students. Every student received a personal invitation to participate, and ads appeared in The Dartmouth itself about this celebration which included a DFS tribute to Meryl Streep, a dance in Common Ground, a Hopkins Center concert by Sweet Honey in the Rock, numerous alumnae panels, roundtable discussions, an arts festival and many other exciting programs.
The Montgomery fellows this term -- Jill Ker Conway and Johnetta Cole -- were both chosen in conjunction with the anniversary. The "associated programs" calendar published each term this year lists a variety of programs having to do with women, gender or coeducation-related issues. Contrary to the Dartmouth's suggestion that these programs would have happened anyway, many of them were designed especially to commemorate the anniversary (the Global Divas Panel last week, the women and engineering panel this Thursday, Mary Kelly's coeducation presentation on April 14 and the presentation about the epistemological development of Dartmouth students by Andrew Garrod on May 7). The Commemoration planning committee continues to work on a book about coeducation at Dartmouth that will be published by the fall, and there will be a closing program before term's end. Before making erroneous statements about events, it would make sense to contact the people in charge.
