The questions reveal the existing dormitory and fraternity house social rules (which differed slightly from one another), as well as the College’s tendency to solicit student input before making broad policy decisions, which continues to this day. Women visitors were allowed in common living areas in fraternity houses and dormitories, although they were require to have “approved chaperones.”

Bowdoin’s campus rules at the time were slightly more strict than those of some other all-male institutions. For example, at Columbia University, women visitors were allowed in male students’ bedrooms without chaperones “on alternate Sundays, as long as the door was left open the ‘width of a book,’ which at least one student interpreted as the width of a matchbook” (Peril, 171).

After coeducation, Bowdoin relaxed its campus social rules tremendously. Trustee Ellen Schuman ’76, recalls that at Bowdoin, unlike at some peer schools that had different curfews for men and women students, “both men and women had equal stature in terms of their rights and responsibilities on campus.” (Trustee Focus Group, 3:20-3:54)

Works Cited:
Peril, Lynn. College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Coeds, Then and Now. New York: Norton, 2006.

AW43 Page 1 - Student Council Social Rules Committee Questionnaire

AW43 Page 2 - Student Council Social Rules Committee Questionnaire

In this February 1968 speech given at a meeting of the Alumni Council (Document AW, 44.1), Student Council President Peter F. Hayes ’68 addresses the “state of the College”—particularly how the College should approach attracting new students and faculty members in the face of mounting financial pressures. He considers the question of coeducation, which he estimates that “probably two-thirds” of the student body supports “on principle.”

Hayes argues, however, that “with near unanimity, those men who favor coeducation here favor a coordinate woman’s college,” rather than a coeducational Bowdoin, and urges the Alumni Council, moving forward, not “to do what is expedient rather than what is best.” That is, it would be expedient to enroll women at Bowdoin, but it would be best to establish a coordinate women’s college nearby.

Although Hayes’ opinion cannot be taken as representative of all Bowdoin students, his role as Student Council President suggests that he is obligated to represent the dominant sentiment on campus in his remarks.

Hayes forwarded his speech to A. LeRoy Greason, who was then the Dean of the College, and who would later become the president, with a request for feedback (Document AW, 44.2). Greason responded that he was “open on the coeducation question,” although he was not, at the time, particularly committed to pursuing coeducation. The College, Greason writes, “would lose a great deal” if fewer men were admitted to make room for women students.

This correspondence illuminates one of many campus attitudes toward coeducation in the years leading to women’s official matriculation at the College. Although Hayes and Greason were by no means the only people on campus who were not enthusiastic about the idea of a coeducational Bowdoin, their attitudes are particularly important to consider, as both were representatives of administrative bodies that shaped student life outside of the classroom. Even though Hayes had graduated by the time the College admitted its first full class of female students, a reluctant Student Council or Office of the Dean of Students could set the tone on campus towards these newly-matriculated women, and present difficulties both inside and outside of the classroom.

AW44.1 Page 1 - Speech to the Alumni Council and Letter from A. LeRoy Greason

AW44.1 Page 2 - Speech to the Alumni Council and Letter from A. LeRoy Greason

AW44.2 Page 1 - Letter from LeRoy Greason to Peter Hayes

AW44.2 Page 2 - Letter from LeRoy Greason to Peter Hayes

The article says that “Bowdoin [was] in a somewhat touchy transitional stage,” and attributes it to several things, including the advent of coeducation.  Problems with rush stemmed in no small part from the presence of women on campus and increasing class size.  Along with twenty cases of dirty rushing, the primary problem was dining.   Bowdoin dining was dependent on the fraternities, and the fraternities’ dining facilities, because the dining halls could not accommodate the entire student body.  Since the student body grew through the inclusion of women, and not many women rushed, the dining halls were stressed.

SS45.1 - Orient: Fraternity Rush Nets Ample "Pledge" Yield

SS45.2 - Orient: Fraternity Rush Nets Ample "Pledge" Yield

This article appeared in the October 9, 1972 issue of The Bowdoin Orient, Bowdoin’s weekly newspaper (Document SS, 46).  It reflects the transitional period that the college was in, as Bowdoin men began to socialize less with women from the community and more with their female peers on campus.  It describes the process of including four female pledges in the Beta Theta Pi house, “a traditionally jockish fraternity.”  The women rejected claims and rumors that the Betas were unwelcoming towards Bowdoin women.  The Orient quotes the women saying, “‘the people are great,’ [they]‘feel at home,’ and [the men are] ‘really nice.’”

The article also details the feelings the four pledges had about the Brookies.  There was certainly the potential for conflict, as Bowdoin’s female students were searching for their place on campus and the Brookies were Bowdoin men’s traditional social.  The Bowdoin women’s responses ranged from stating that the Brookies presence did not matter, to saying that the Brookies were their equals, to dismissing the Brookies.  One woman chose not to comment.  These responses show that the early Bowdoin women faced numerous challenges in the Bowdoin social scene.

SS46 - Orient: Beta Girls at Home, Brookie Trust Busted

Although the article is ostensibly about Kappa Sig’s reputation as a particularly raucous house, much of the discussion hinges on its status as the last remaining all male fraternity. The link between its unique characteristics as the only all-male fraternity and the fraternity with the wildest reputation (whether or not that reputation was deserved) suggests that the two were correlated, at least in the minds of the student body at the time. This conceptual link between “male” and “rowdy” recalls much of the conversation leading up to coeducation, including the Pierce Report, which argued that women would have a civilizing influence on the campus social scene.

Particularly interesting is the allegation that Kappa Sig mistreated women students during rotational eating. The article sums up the fraternity’s response as such: “Consensus of the interviewed believed that the coeds came to Kappa Sig with preconceived notions about the house and that the allegations of mistreatment was [sic] in the least an exaggeration and mostly sheer fantasy. One brother replied, though, that mistreatment could have occurred, but this did not have the sanction of the house.”

There are no further references to this alleged hazing incident in that year’s Orient.

AW47 - Orient: AKS Headed for Armageddon

This Orient editorial, which appeared in the April 27, 1973 edition (Document AW, 48), illuminates some of the unexpected complications that accompanied coeducation—specifically, the implications of coeducational fraternities on interfraternity athletic competitions. Having women on a fraternity’s track team, it argues, gives an unfair advantage to the coeducational fraternities; however, not allowing women means an unfair disadvantage. The author suggests that a separate White Key competition should be established for women, just as there are less competitive leagues for male athletes who do not have varsity-level skills.

Although the tone of the article is light—its title comes from a tongue-in-cheek joke—it does bring up some of the questions that coeducation raised for the Greek system, besides the obvious ones of membership and housing. As trustee Ellen Schuman ’76 said, Bowdoin’s administration “in some ways they had no idea what they were doing” when they began the process of coeducation, and often, issues were confronted and solved on an ad hoc basis (Trustee Focus Group, 3:20-3:54).

AW48 - Orient: Chauvinistic Oinkings

Even before the advent of coeducation at Bowdoin, however, there were some flaws in the fraternity system: “most, if not all” Bowdoin fraternities discriminated against black, Catholic, and Jewish students, in part as a result of the national fraternities’ regulations. A local fraternity, Alpha Rho Upsilon (whose letters were chosen to stand for “All Races United”), was founded in 1936 in response to this exclusion.

While over 95% of the Bowdoin student body was composed of fraternity brothers in the late sixties, by 1971, only 50% of freshmen joined a fraternity. In the late 1970s, however, years after this article’s publication, fraternity membership once again rose, and comprised a solid majority of the student body.

The article notes, “coeducation presented the most serious threat to the fraternities’ dominance at Bowdoin.” At the time of this article’s writing, “most fraternities” accepted women, and “a large percentage of women” chose to join them. Even so, the very word “fraternity” suggests some fundamental incompatibility with a coeducational institution, particularly since there were no sororities on campus. Although women students did pledge as brothers, they were often limited to local or social memberships rather than full voting memberships.

The essentially exclusive nature of fraternities was an important factor in the College’s March 1997 decision to phase them out.

AW49-1 - Orient: Golden Age for Bowdoin Greeks

AW49-2 - Orient: Golden Age for Bowdoin Greeks

By 1975 the fraternities as a whole were not single-minded in their approach to women.  The institutions range from praising themselves on remaining single-sex (Alpha Kappa Sigma), to devoting several sentences to women and stating that women could live in the fraternity houses and be full members (Delta Sigma).  Most fraternities fell somewhere in between.  Most felt the need to mention women in their profiles, but would not grant them full membership.  They limited women to social membership, which meant that they could engage fully in social activities associated with the fraternities.  Social members typically did not live in the fraternity houses and were not permitted to vote on fraternity matters.  The way these fraternities addressed women shows that the Bowdoin social scene, in which fraternities predominated, still did not grant women the same privileges as it did men.

Overall, these pages display a change in Bowdoin’s fraternity and social scene over the college’s first ten years of coeducation.  The earlier 1975 booklet shows that the fraternities were still figuring out how to incorporate women in their ranks.  The 1982-1983 booklet shows that at least most that fraternities had found a way to include women in their ranks by having them as active and productive members.

In the early years of coeducation, women students were permitted to join fraternities as local “social members” of the organizations, who could attend parties and some (though not all) meetings. Many women readily joined the fraternities as “brothers,” but some chose to pledge as a matter of necessity: at the time, the only dining hall on campus was Moulton Union, and students by and large relied on the fraternities for meals.

By the 1980s, however, women had been far more integrated into the College’s fraternity system. In this 1985 photograph (Document AW, 52), two female members of Delta Kappa Epsilon pose at an annual “boxer shorts” party. Some fraternities disassociated themselves from their national chapters so that women could join as full voting members.

In the mid-eighties, when this photograph was taken, fraternities continued to dominate the social scene for both men and women, although the fraternities continued to be, themselves, most often dominated by male students.

AW52 - DKE Member Photo