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Section II: Coeducation before the Late 1960s
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53 SECTION II Coeducation before the Late 1960s While many former men’s colleges became coeducational between 1968 and 1972, some admitted women in the 1950s. The two institutions discussed in this section, University of Rochester and Lincoln University, are good examples of the transition to coeducation before the twentieth-century women’s movement was influential. When the University of Rochester became coeducational in 1954, it was actually for the second time. Because the university had been involved with women’s higher education, both through coeducation in 1900 and then through an affiliated women’s college, coeducation in 1955 was not an abrupt break with the past. Lundt, Poulson, and Miller-Bernal argue that the lack of commitment to gender equity meant that women’s interests or needs did not get addressed until the women’s movement of the 1970s. One might expect that Lincoln University, a historically black institution, would have favored coeducation since almost all other black colleges were coeducational . Lincoln saw itself as the “black Princeton,” however, and like that institution did not want to lower its prestige by admitting women. But Lincoln faced severe financial constraints that Princeton did not, and it also experienced a decline in its enrollment of academically elite students as predominantly white institutions opened to minorities. Miller-Bernal and Pevar argue that admitting women became a way of overcoming these problems. Similar to the University of Rochester, Lincoln University did not at first commit itself to gender equity. Even today, concerns about racism complicate feminist issues. CoingCoedFinalPages.indd 53 5/26/04 4:53:25 PM CoingCoedFinalPages.indd 54 5/26/04 4:53:25 PM ...