Going Coed: Women's Experiences in Formerly Men's Colleges and Universities, 1950-2000

SECTION III: Conversion to Coeducation in the Ivy League

109 SECTION III Conversion to Coeducation in the Ivy League The academic world has long paid close attention to what the most prestigious institutions do. Thus when Princeton and Yale decided to investigate and then implement coeducation in the late 1960s, many other men’s colleges also began to think about admitting women. In Chapter 5 Synnott explains how Princeton and Yale became coeducational, after they both considered and then rejected the idea of establishing women’s coordinate institutions. She explores the role that competition between these two universities played in the process of admitting women and then in adapting to their needs. Given the great financial and academic resources of these institutions, their ability to implement coeducation thoroughly might be taken as a yardstick by which to measure other efforts. As Chapter 5 also demonstrates, however, it took pressure from women—students, faculty, and administrators—to make Princeton and Yale move toward being gender-equitable institutions. This is not to say that today these two prestigious institutions are models of gender equity in every respect; particularly in the area of having sufficient women as senior administrators and tenured faculty, Yale and Princeton are still not gender-equal coeducational universities. CoingCoedFinalPages.indd 109 5/26/04 4:53:41 PM CoingCoedFinalPages.indd 110 5/26/04 4:53:41 PM ...