David Israel – Page 12 – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

First applicants with Dick Moll and First Proctor Belinda Bothwick

Early Applicants and Bowdoin’s First Female Proctor

These two images depict watershed moments in the history of coeducation at Bowdoin. First, Director of Admissions Richard Moll is shown with two young women who are identified as the first two to apply to Bowdoin in 1970 (Document AK, 20.1). Certainly these two were among the first, but another document featured on this site makes the claim that yet another woman, Elissa Berry, was officially the first to apply. Although the two women in this image did not ultimately matriculate at Bowdoin, it is interesting to note how easily they might fit into a picture of Bowdoin women in 2011, as fashion trends have seemingly come full circle.

The second image depicts the first woman to become a dorm proctor, Belinda Bothwick, a member of the 12 College Exchange Program from Wheaton College (Document AK, 20.2). This is an interesting example of how some of these exchange students became truly integrated within the larger Bowdoin community.

Ultimately, these two historically important images invite as many questions as they provide answers. Who took these pictures? Are they candid or posed? Certainly each photo suggests that the novelty of being a woman at Bowdoin was important enough for these moments to have been photographically documented.

AK20.1 - Image of first applicants with Dick Moll

AK20.2- First woman to become a dorm proctor, Belinda Bothwick, a member of the 12 College Exchange Program from Wheaton College

Susan Jacobson Orient Article

Susan Jacobson: Bowdoin’s First Woman Graduate

The article “Bowdoin Graduates Its First Woman Student” in Bowdoin’s student newspaper, the Orient, from June 4, 1971 (Document EN, 21), highlights an important milestone in Bowdoin’s history. Susan Jacobson studied at Bowdoin as an exchange student from Connecticut College through the Twelve College Exchange Program during her junior year. She was able to return for a third semester in the fall of 1970, which happened to be the same semester that Bowdoin decided to become coeducational. Although women were not expected to graduate until the spring of 1972, Jacobson made a strong case for herself and, after conversations between Bowdoin’s Dean of the College, Professor A. LeRoy Greason, Jr., and officials at Connecticut College, it was decided that she would be allowed to transfer and then graduate from Bowdoin in 1971.

The interview with Jacobson reveals some of the intricacies of life for Bowdoin’s first women students. Jacobson recalls that in her first year at Bowdoin, men seemed unable to find the women’s house a few blocks away from campus, but that, having moved closer to campus her second year, the women had many more visitors. She stated that “‘Bowdoin men have gone out of their way to be nice,’” but also that some of the men “‘don’t know how to treat girls and often put them on a different plane.’” Jacobson’s experiences parallel those of other women from the first and early classes at Bowdoin, as the oral histories for this project reveal.

Sadly, Susan Jacobson passed away in the fall of 2010, so we could not interview her as part of this project.

EN21- Bowdoin Graduates Its First Woman Student

Susan Jacobson’s Commencement Address

First Female Graduate Delivers Commencement Address

In her bold and eloquent 1971 commencement address, Bowdoin’s first female graduate, Susan Jacobson, assuages some common concerns about coeducation at Bowdoin and proposes insightful recommendations for the future of the college as a successfully coeducational institution (Document AK, 22).

Making a point to contextualize Bowdoin’s efforts not only in the contemporary world but also within history, Jacobson points to Bowdoin’s responsibility to seek out an international student body. Noting that other nations had long ago realized their “woman power,” Jacobson hopes that the United States – and hopefully Bowdoin itself – will “[…] someday be able to boast of having educated an Indira Ghandi or a Golda Meir.” Jacobson adds that allowing women to study at Bowdoin serves as a meaningful way to honor the many women who worked for and committed themselves to Bowdoin in non-academic ways in the past.

Jacobson is careful to note that the admission of women poses no threat to the preexisting academic and administrative features that make Bowdoin so effective and well respected. With what may be a hint of sarcasm she writes, “So firmly established are these areas that they need not fear any injury by the “weaker sex.”” On the contrary, she says, the presence of women serves to enhance already prestigious academic departments while helping to develop and improve the arts and humanities. She further asserts that, “Many wild speculations as to what the co-eds will be like and much needless worrying stem from a failure to realize that these girls have wants, interests, and aims similar to the male contingent. Instead of viewing these women as invaders from another galaxy, one should and must accept them as a complement to the male student body.”

Jacobson mentions but does not dwell on the adversity that many of these first Bowdoin women faced. She concludes with the hopeful sentence, “From now on [the alma mater] should read “Bowdoin from birth the nurturer of men, and now of women.” Little could she have imagined that in 1994, Anthony Antolini ’63, director of the Bowdoin Chorus, would honor Bowdoin’s bicentennial by officially altering the lyrics of the song to be more gender-inclusive, changing the words “nurturer of men” to “nurturer and friend.”

We were unable to reprint this speech in its entirety. If you would like to read the entire speech, please visit the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College

Jacobson, Susan. “Commencement Address,” Class Records, Class of 1971 [1.6.166], Bowdoin College Archives, Brunswick, Maine.

Orient: Men’s College with Women

The Newly Coeducational Bowdoin: A ‘Men’s College With Women?’

In the fall of 1971, 134 women arrived at Bowdoin as first year, transfer, and exchange students. This series of three documents explores the very early experiences of women at the newly coeducational Bowdoin. The September 17, 1971 article, “‘Men’s College with Women’” (Document EN, 23.1) from the college newspaper, the Orient, outlines some of the first problems that women faced. It expresses the sentiment that having such a small number of women does not make the College coed, but rather “a men’s college with women.” The article describes some of the earliest concerns of women at Bowdoin, and it recognizes the different experiences and adjustments of first years compared to transfer and exchange students, noting that the transfer and exchange students are already “accustomed to some form of college life,” but nevertheless “must confront such problems as adapting to a new academic environment as well as adjusting to their minority position as women.”

A second Orient article, “Bowdoin: ‘The Gracious Host’” (Document EN, 23.2) from October 8, 1971, and the accompanying letter to the editor from Caroline Boardman (Document EN, 23.3) from October 22, 1971, also reflect a concern that women did not occupy a secure space at Bowdoin. Boardman wonders whether an administrator’s use of the term “gracious host” to describe Bowdoin’s relationship to women “[betrays] a note of impermanence.” These concerns about the impermanence of women and especially the lack of preparation for women’s arrival at a newly coeducational institution are not unwarranted. With only a one to six ratio of women to men in the 1971-72 school year, and the goal of reaching a one to three or two to three ratio after four years (Pierce Report, 39), it is understandable that some women did not see themselves as claiming full citizenship at the College.

Such issues with the introduction of women into a previously all-male institution were not unique to Bowdoin. In Going Coed, Susan Poulson and Leslie Miller-Bernal remark that college administrations often had little idea as to what changes should be made to make women feel “welcome in the classroom and on campus” (312). They point out that colleges generally did not “prepare the campus culture for women,” instead expecting women to be able to fit right in without shifts in the “status quo” (312). These Orient articles suggest that the same may have been true at Bowdoin.

EN23.1 - The Newly Coeducational Bowdoin: A ‘Men’s College With Women?’

EN23.2 - The Newly Coeducational Bowdoin: A ‘Men’s College With Women?’

EN23.3 - The Newly Coeducational Bowdoin: A ‘Men’s College With Women?’

Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin

Shortly after the arrival of women at Bowdoin, the question of coed housing arose, and this collection of reports and an Orient (Bowdoin’s student newspaper) article documents the process of addressing the issue. In the book Going Coed, Susan L. Poulson notes that sexual segregation “on the eve of coeducation” was extremely prevalent on college campuses, including in housing (227), and Bowdoin was certainly addressing this issue of coeducational housing. The College was only a couple of years behind Harvard, whose housing became coed in 1970, and Rutgers and Georgetown, which had introduced coed housing even earlier, in the 1960s.

As demonstrated by the Student Life Committee’s Report from November 3, 1971 (Document EN, 24.1), Bowdoin was grappling with the concept of coeducational housing within just months of the arrival of matriculating women students at the college. The committee suggests three guidelines: all students can choose between coed and single sex housing, but the College does not guarantee that those students requesting coed housing will be assigned to it; dormitories will be coed by alternating floors, but due to the ratio of men to women at the college, there will likely be three floors of men to each floor of women; first-year students can request coeducational housing, but their parents will be notified.

The student newspaper was quick to pick up on this report and also quick to criticize the second guideline regarding coeducational housing by alternate floors in an article entitled “New Coed Housing Plan: Sexes Remain Separated” from November 15, 1971 (Document EN, 24.2). Despite these criticisms, nearly a year and a half later, in March of 1973, the “Student Housing” section of another Student Life Committee Report (Document EN, 24.3) notes that coed housing had been successfully implemented, that the “vast majority” of the class of 1976 had requested it, and that there was less damage in coed dormitories. The Pierce Report of 1969, which had recommended coeducation for Bowdoin, declares that “women would undoubtedly have a ‘civilizing’ effect” at Bowdoin (31-32), but this 1974 report speculates that the decreased damage is the result, not of women having a “taming influence” on men, but of students in coed housing seeing each other “as more of a family” and the building “as more of a home.”

EN24.1 Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin

EN24.2a Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin

EN24.2b Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin

EN24.3a Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin

EN24.3b Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin