Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965

Conclusion

The programs created to support women’s continuing education proved extremely popular within a short time of their introduction. From the University of Minnesota’s initial effort in 1960, hundreds of similar programs for women appeared on college campuses by 1974.1 However, although popular, continuing education programs were not especially long-lived. Cultural changes effected by the women’s movement of the late 1960s began to demand more from campuses , and they particularly challenged continuing education’s life-span approach to women’s work and education. Less content to put their plans on hold while raising families, middle-class women of the 1970s and 1980s soon insisted on more flexibility around their education than the continuing education programs had either advocated or envisioned, pushing those programs to either change or wither.2 women’s programs in later years Each of the four women’s continuing education programs considered in this book adapted somewhat successfully to new ways of seeing and serving women, instituting several programmatic iterations over subsequent decades. More than forty years after their founding, all continue to function, albeit with differences in organization and mission. Two keys to the programs’ long-term survival were emphasizing their roles as women’s centers rather than as mere curricular entry points for mature women, and turning their attention to national issues rather than addressing purely local women’s concerns. Conclusion Within a few years the Minnesota Plan sharpened its focus to two strands: one for women’s counseling, always a programmatic strength; and the other a widereaching women’s center that sponsored conferences and fostered research on gender. The Plan’s focus on special curricula and programming for its returning women students gave way as it turned increasingly to national-level treatment of women’s issues through efforts in research, policy, and practice. Emphasizing its role as a women’s center more than a curricular program sustained the university -wide effort over time.3 The University of Michigan’s continuing education center succeeded by repeatedly reinterpreting its flexible mission of “advocacy, research, and service” to address the changing needs of women, both on the Ann Arbor campus and nationally. The program strengthened local services for women by emphasizing counseling, creating a popular scholarship program, and fostering the university ’s new commission on the status of women. When that commission as well as new research centers on women’s issues appeared on the Michigan campus, the continuing education center offered itself as a sturdy, experienced partner. These partnerships fostered the center’s movement into national issues as Michigan increasingly conducted wide-ranging research on women’s employment and educational concerns.4 While continuing to provide fellowships for women scholars, the Radcliffe Institute joined other Radcliffe programs to create a national group of centers for research on women. Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library on the history of women in America and its Murray Research Center for the study of human development joined the Radcliffe Institute (renamed for Mary Bunting in 1978) to create a setting of national prominence for research on women. In doing so, Radcliffe College took on the role of fostering attention to women’s issues both within the Harvard University environment and on the larger national scene. But in assuming this task, the Institute gradually shifted its target clientele. Although still attending to women with Ph.D.s, Radcliffe eventually turned to boosting those who had already secured places on the academic tenure track and now needed support to advance professionally; the earlier focus on women seeking their first professional position faded in focus. The 1999 merger of Radcliffe College with Harvard University muted the female aspect of the fellowship program, aiming instead to integrate women’s concerns within the Harvard environment.5 Situatedatthesmallestinstitution,SarahLawrence’sCenterfortheContinuing Education of Women remained more locally focused on serving mature women students than the larger programs with greater resources and wider reach. Yet, the Sarah Lawrence program adapted over time by addressing women with needs c o n c l u s i o n 229 230 h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n f o r w o m e n i n p o s t w a r a m e r i c a different from those of the early 1960s clientele. Sarah Lawrence’s center continued to offer programs and counseling to ease collegiate entry for nontraditional students but...