Social Life & Fraternities – Page 4 – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

Interview with Lisa McElaney ’77, Trustee, by Emma Nathaniel ’12

Improving over Time: Lisa McElaney’s Thoughts about Bowdoin since Coeducation

A graduate of the third fully coeducational class at Bowdoin, in 1977, Lisa McElaney is not afraid to admit that her relationship with the College has not always been exclusively positive. However, Lisa returned as a visiting faculty member for a year in the 1980s, was granted the Common Good Award in 1996, and served on the Board of Trustees for ten years in the 2000s. After a not-so-perfect beginning at Bowdoin, what brought Lisa back over the years? Click here to find out!

Audio: click below to begin listening

Intriguing Pieces:

Time: 6:11

Quote: [In reference to her first years at Bowdoin] “In retrospect I think of myself having lost my voice for a while in that first period of time at Bowdoin, a lot of my student experience there the first two years I flailed more than I ever had in life up until then. Things had gone pretty smoothly for me. I’d done well, I’d fallen into the right relationships, and I think it was a question of timing, but when I arrived at Bowdoin, that pattern went in another direction….”

Time: 36:27

Quote: [Describing her junior year as an exchange student at Wellesley] “[My roommate from Bowdoin and I] have come to Wellesley with ten other Bowdoin students as part of the Twelve College Exchange- all of them are male. We are these weird two girls who want to go to a women’s college, and the Wellesley students think we’re weird, too. You know, ‘what are you doing here?’ And I get into this dorm where I have a single, so this is also really exciting…My dorm is comprised of mostly African American, Latina, Native American women, and I am on a floor where I am in a minority…”

Time: 52:20

Quote: [Discussing the Board of Trustees] “My sense is that really great organizations like Bowdoin, and I think the leadership of Bowdoin is really terrific, is cognizant of building a board that is diverse, and I mean diverse in a lot of different ways…”

Citation: I, Emma Nathaniel, interviewed Lisa McElaney ’77 at her office in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Friday, October 21, 2011. We discussed her time at Bowdoin both as a student and later as a visiting professor and trustee.

Interview with Linda Nelson ’83, by Coral Sandler ’12

Claiming Space for Bowdoin Women: A Discussion with a founding member of the Women’s Resource Center, Linda Nelson ‘83

As one of the founding members of the Women’s Resource Center and the Gay Straight Alliance, Linda Nelson helped claim new spaces for Bowdoin women in the early 1980s. To hear about how she entered Bowdoin as an out lesbian, experienced active support and real harassment, and persistently worked for social change at Bowdoin (and in the world), listen to the audio.

Audio: click below to begin listening

Intriguing Pieces:

Time: 00:07:44
Quotation: “Somebody tried to burn it [the Women’s Resource Center] down at one point. Um, we did receive threatening phone calls kind of on a regular basis. Some of us were followed around campus.”

Time: 00:14:28
Quotation: “And I think what we realized was that especially with the fraternity structure in which you had this physical structure of houses, that women really needed a space here. So that’s where the idea for the Women’s Resource Center came from. Needed a space, needed a collection.”

Time: 00:24:53
Quotation: [Linda on the message of a lecture she attended by Audre Lord]“Stop feeling guilty about it [privilege]. You know, those of you who got a good education, who have the privilege of being white, who have the privilege of being educated get out there and do something and make a difference with that. And I firmly believe that and I think everybody that helped to found that Women’s Resource Center as a collective really, really believed that.”

Citation: I, Coral Sandler, interviewed Linda Nelson on Saturday, October 14, 2011, in the Nixon Lounge of Hawthorne Longfellow Library at Bowdoin College. We discussed Linda Nelson’s experience at Bowdoin as a student and founding members of the Women’s Resource Center.

Interview with William Eccleston ’74, by Genevieve Barlow ’13

This interview attempts to get one perspective of the men who called Bowdoin home during the early years of coeducation. Bill Eccleston class of 1974 shares his stories of what life was like for women here at Bowdoin but from a perspective of a man. He adds an interesting view on every day life at Bowdoin that ranges from fraternities, to athletics, to curriculum. Bill provides a positive view on how Bowdoin changed with the implementation of women.

Audio: click tracks(s) below to begin listening

freshmen registering for the 1970-71 academic year, Bill Eccleston's first year on campus

Interview with Patricia Pope ’75, by Angelica Guerrero ’11

Running with the Guys: A Conversation with Patricia Pope

A transfer student from Smith College, Patricia Pope came to Bowdoin in search of a more balanced experience socially and academically. While Ms. Pope describes her overall experience at Bowdoin as positive, she talks about the ways in which the difficulties she encountered during her time here prepared her for life. To hear about how this woman created a space for herself in the classroom, on the track and through the power of baking, listen below.

Audio: click below to begin listening

Intriguing Pieces:
Time: 00:08:10
Quotation: [In reference to a professor overlooking a footnote and giving Ms. Pope what she felt was an unfair grade] “I had one situation that was character building I could say now but was devastating for me at the time. I had written a paper on the first female secretary of labor, Francis Perkins. And I had written a term paper on her, and I received my first C ever,-in my life. The professor had not read my footnote indicating that there was no original research I could perform because Ms. Perkins’s papers were locked up for fifty years following her death. And so I had to use secondary sources in researching and writing my paper. He had missed that footnote and given me a C. Several history professors came to me, very, very concerned about that and that started a dialogue”

Time: 00:14:15
Quotation: [In reference to baking as a way of building community] “Interestingly, I lived in Pine Street my senior year, which was a lot of fun. And we discovered the power of baking because whenever I would bake chocolate chip cookies, within ten minutes, everyone in Pine Street would show up in our flat and we’d wind up making a big dinner together…”

Time: 00:17:20
Quotation: [In reference to discovering chewing gum in her braid after class] “I had very long hair. I remember one time I used to braid my hair back and I had someone sitting behind me who was just very upset with me because he thought that I was getting favorable treatment from the professor in that class, which I wasn’t, and to my amazement, I got out of class and he had put chewing gum all up and down my braid…”

Citation: I, Angelica Guerrero, interviewed Patricia Pope on Friday, November 4, 2011, in the Nixon Reading Room in Hawthorne-Longfellow Library at Bowdoin College. We discussed Patricia Pope’s experience at Bowdoin as a student, and in particular, as a member of one of the first classes of female students admitted to Bowdoin during Bowdoin’s transition to coeducation.

Social Life and Sexuality Focus Group

This discussion brought together three women of the first two classes of coeducation at Bowdoin. These women, Elissa [Liddy] Berry (’75), Barney Geller (’75), and Anne Ireland (’76), describe their social experience during their four years at Bowdoin. These women did experience hostility from some students on campus due to their gender, but the stories they share for the most part express a strong sense of belonging. Listen to the audio to hear their experiences with fraternities, sexual harassment and simply what it was like to be a woman at Bowdoin in the 70s.

Audio: click title below to begin listening