Three years after the official announcement of Bowdoin’s transition to coeducation, specifically in August 1974, a committee entitled the Special Committee on the Curriculum began its operation. Although initially comprised of ten members and a consultant, by the time the data part of the report presented here was released, that is, on March 10, 1976, it was comprised of only seven regular members, three of whom were often absent. As a result of its dwindling numbers, the Special Committee was unable to make specific recommendations in every area of the curriculum in this report but still asserted its belief that the curriculum needs to “remain the object of on-going study and of periodic adjustments.”

Within this thirty-page report, the Special Committee on the Curriculum addresses and makes recommendations on topics such as the “Liberal Arts Curriculum,” “Distribution and Requirements,” and a “Freshman-Sophomore Program” and provides various data tables pertaining to these subjects areas at the end of the report, including the two presented here. The first distribution table entitled, “Number of Freshmen…” (Document SW, 36.1), reveals that after the admission of women in 1971, in almost every single course area, except for French, German, Russian, and Biology, enrollment increased, if not substantially so, by 1974. The second distribution table entitled, “Courses taken by majors…” (Document SW, 36.2), reveals that, after three years of women’s admission to Bowdoin, the dominant majors were Government, History, Psychology, Biology and English, and that students were still taking a relatively equal amount of courses outside their majors.

Thus, although Bowdoin anticipated many curricular modifications occurring as a result of women’s admission to the College, as these distribution tables expose, very few changes actually took place besides a general increase in class enrollments.