While Dartmouth may not have been an entirely welcoming environment for women in the early days of coeducation, several female students from the 1970s and before remembered their time at the College fondly, with relatively little mention of any tension between the sexes.
A group of six women -- four of whom came from the Class of 1979, one from Mount Holyoke's class of 1954, and one from the Class of 2004 -- gathered in Tindle Lounge last Friday to share their college experiences as part of a weekend's worth of activities designed to bring together '04s and alumni from the visiting classes of '54 and '79.
The two alumni classes will be holding their 50th and 25th reunions at the same time the current Class of 2004 graduates.
"I didn't feel my gender was an issue here," said Penny Breed '79, who arrived at the College as part of the fourth coeducational class. "I never felt students treated me any differently."
Though Breed said her move to Dartmouth was eased by her prior attendance at Hanover High School, where she had ample exposure to college life, other women at the discussion remembered a surprisingly easy transition to a school where male students still outnumbered females by as much as four to one.
For Elizabeth Shannon '79, who came from a female-dominated Virginia high school, Dartmouth's unbalanced sex ratio represented an appealing opportunity rather than a challenge.
As an applicant, she said Dartmouth's male majority "seemed very good after going to a school with 35 girls and 15 boys."
"I had no idea there was supposed to be any problem between men and women," she said. "It had never occurred to us ... we thought it was heaven."
New Hampshire native Joan Barthold '79 said her pre-college skiing experience had already acclimated her to a male-majority environment even before she arrived in Hanover.
"It was all the preppies wandering around talking about their AP classes and SAT scores that was much more off-putting than gender," she said.
Nearly two decades before the College admitted the first women undergraduates, Mount Holyoke student Jinny Pope recalled pleasant visits to a Darmouth campus which offered recreational opportunities nearly identical of those of today.
Pope remembered attending movies at the Nugget Theater and social events at fraternities, which she said were "the social center of campus."
The experience of women at Dartmouth was not, however, without its occasional negative incidents. While walking to class along Webster Avenue during her senior year, Shannon said a fraternity member had directed several derogatory remarks at her.
When she sent a letter to The Dartmouth about the incident, the fraternity responded with a public apology that "made it clear that they did not condone that behavior," Shannon said.
Nancy Malmquist '79 recalled upperclassmen perched on the Hop balcony with signs rating all the first-year women passing through on their way to the annual freshman dance, but said that in general students were "a very open and inclusive group."
Several of the women agreed that the current Dartmouth student body seems to lack some of the energy and school spirit of previous classes.
Shannon recalled a "wild enthusiasm" among students now lost, while Barthold talked of a "spirit of teamwork that I don't see as much now," remembering days when students flocked to the Green to build the snow sculpture for Winter Carnival.
According to Summer President of Delta Delta Delta sorority Meredith Liu '04, who spoke for current Dartmouth students, many things have nonetheless changed for the better since co-education's early days in the 1970s, most notably, the make-up of the student body which is now divided almost perfectly between men and women.
"There is a lot of female leadership on campus," she said.
The talk was moderated by Caryn Karo '04, alumni relations coordinator for the 2004 Class Council, which organized the event along with officers from the classes of 1954 and 1979.
