Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

A Class Project of GWS 280 - Fall 2011

1982-83 Rush Booklet

The 1982-1983 rush booklet (Document SS, 51) is structured the same as the 1975 booklet.  This booklet reflects women’s further inclusion in Bowdoin’s social scene.  In this one almost every fraternity indicates that women have full membership.  Only two fraternities that at this point limit women’s membership.  Chi Psi was the only all-male fraternity.  They state that women are always welcome and encouraged to participate fully in their social functions.  Theta Delta Chi, on the other hand, had a women’s group separate from the fraternity itself.  The two groups did collaborate on social activities throughout the year.

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.

DKE Member Photo

In addition to administrative and practical concerns, coeducation at Bowdoin presented complications for campus social life, which was, at the time, dominated by fraternities. Even though women had been on campus, and were often bused in from women’s colleges across New England for parties, they now had to be incorporated into the College’s residential system, as well.

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
AW52 - DKE Member Photo

Alpha Beta Phi Sorority Page

This page is from the 1990 booklet that introduced the student body to the Greek Societies (Document SS, 53).  The Alpha Beta Phi sorority was the only single-sex female Greek Society that Bowdoin has had.  It was founded in 1983 after nineteen women decided to leave a coeducational fraternity.  They left because they felt that women received unequal treatment from the men.  They wrote in their mission statement that they existed specifically to provide a supportive and nurturing environment.  The group, including those who had been involved in fraternities, felt that they needed a space where women, not men, dominated the discourse, and where women could assume leadership roles.  They promise these things in their mission statement.  In this way the women of ABP sought to bring about some social change at Bowdoin in a way that would empower women.  Through experience they believed that this could not occur for women through the fraternity system as it existed on campus.

 

SS53 - Alpha Beta Phi Sorority Page
SS53 - Alpha Beta Phi Sorority Page from 1990

Memorandum on Integration of Fraternities

This memorandum (Document SS, 54), sent out on April 21, 1992, to members of the campus community, informed the community that the Governing Boards and the Student Affairs Committee decided to eliminate single-sex fraternities on campus.  The memorandum emphasizes that then president Robert H. Edwards, along with John Magee, then Chairman of the Executive Committee, agree with and support the Governing Board and Student Affairs Committee’s position.

The Student Affairs Committee believed single sex social institutions harmed the college.  One concern was that parents might not want to send their children to a school that supported organizations that discriminate based on gender.  Despite the important social role that greek letter societies had played on campus, the Committee felt that, because the discriminatory societies dominated the social scene, they limited the students’ freedom to make social choices.

The resolution voted upon by the Student Affairs Committee recommended that organizations that discriminated on the basis of gender should be prohibited.  It is important to note that this document was issued in 1992, twenty years after the implementation of coeducation at Bowdoin.  In another five years, in 1997, the college would eliminate fraternities altogether.

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