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On a September morning in 1972, College President John Kemeny began his address to the crowd of freshmen assembled in College Hall with the words, "Men and women of Dartmouth" for the first time in the Dartmouth's history.
The Class of 1976 gathered there, the first Dartmouth class to be coeducational for all 4 years and the first to follow the D-plan for all four years, will return to Hanover this week for a reunion on the 25th anniversary of their graduation.
While '76s acknowledged that there were many people on campus opposed to coeducation, they said the administration worked hard to fully integrate women into campus life.
Melanie Fisher Matte '76 remembers how President Kemeny's opening remarks set the tone for her four years at Dartmouth.
According to Matte, men did sometimes nastily tease women.
For example, she recalled that Thayer Dining Hall bought eggs from a company that printed the words "Co-Hens" on its boxes, and that the word was sometimes used as a derogatory term for "co-ed."
However, Matte added that such teasing was usually fairly easy to ignore, and that her experience as a female student at Dartmouth during the early years of coeducation was more positive than negative.
Administrators went out of their way to start up programs in women's sports, Matte said, noting that she was able to participate in a number of different activities on campus.
Matte was a member of Phi Tau fraternity and was the first female president of The Dartmouth.
She loved the exuberant atmosphere of Dartmouth, and recollects fondly how shocked a visiting friend of hers from Harvard was by the amount of school spirit the Dartmouth spectators showed at ice hockey games.
While Stephen Bell '76 remembers several letters angry letters about coeducation appearing in The Dartmouth while he was here, he said that most of his female friends were nonetheless able to thrive at Dartmouth.
"Many of the men there wouldn't have gone to Dartmouth if it hadn't been coed," he said.
He pointed out that approximately 80 percent of the committee planning this week's reunion are women.
