Report – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

Report of C.E.P. Sub-committee on Coeducation

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many single-sex colleges across the country began to consider transitioning into coeducational institutions. In 1969, Bowdoin became one of twelve colleges to participate in a Twelve College Exchange program that allowed male and female students to spend a semester to a full year studying at a college from which their sex had previously been excluded. Through the exchange program, the colleges involved hoped to learn more about the changes that would occur and the new facilities and/or provisions that would be necessary for the admission of predominantly female students, but in general, students of the opposite sex. Bowdoin considered and evaluated the many modifications required as a result of women’s potential admission by forming various sub-committees within, for example, the Committee on Preparatory Schools and Admissions, the Committee on Student life, and notably, within the Curriculum and Education Policy Committee (C.E.P.).

The report presented here (Document, SW, 31) is from the C.E.P. subcommittee on Coeducation. It addresses the general and specific curricular implications the entrance of women to Bowdoin could have based on the subcommittee’s reviews of “extensive reports prepared by the faculty and administrative groups at Kenyon, Vassar, Wesleyan, Williams, and Yale,” institutions that were all coeducational by 1970 and some of whom were members of the College Exchange.

According to this report, the C.E.P. subcommittee on Coeducation favored the admission of women to Bowdoin, asserting that women, “as students and as faculty” would “improve and enrich the cultural and intellectual climate of the College.” With regards to curricular implications, the subcommittee claims that, despite the finding that “girls do not necessarily ‘bunch up’ in the humanities courses and avoid the natural sciences,” it still might be necessary to give “wider offerings in music, art, and languages” and provide an “extension of the offerings in psychology to meet the interests of women in child development and clinical psychology.” In addition, they state that greater demands may be made on the faculty based on the evidence that “academically able women” are often very interested in independent study

Report of C.E.P. Sub-committee on Coeducation

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

Addressing Women’s Security Needs

In the “Security” section of a 1973 Student Life Committee Report (Document AK, 28), the issue of campus security “as it affected women students in particular” came to the fore. Due to a number of reported “incidents,” and the fact that, with the increase in the size of the student body size, student housing was expanding further and further from the center of campus, an “escort service” – akin to today’s shuttle service – was implemented. Overall, the report recommended an increase in the total security presence on campus.

Interestingly, the need for this increase in security presence was described as a direct result of the addition of women to Bowdoin. The implication is either (or both) that women require more protection than men, and/or that men are more likely to commit crimes against women than against each other. Another interesting component is the mention of “incidents.” Though it is unclear whether these were particularly violent or sexual in nature, the type of “incidents” that might prompt a woman to seek an escort service at night were likely assault-oriented.

At the time, Bowdoin was not alone in beginning to recognize the need for sexual assault protection and support for women students. In the 1970s, feminists brought issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault to the forefront, on college campuses as well as in the larger society. In 2011, sexual assault awareness and prevention are central issues at Bowdoin, and the community has made a remarkable effort to keep this campus safe. Every year, “Consent Is Sexy Week” teaches Bowdoin students how to recognize and avoid sexual assault through various programs and events. Bowdoin’s Alliance for Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) is an umbrella title for the collaboration of various groups all devoted in whole or in part to these issues, including Bowdoin Men Against Sexual Violence (BMASV), VSpace, Vday, Peer Health, Safe Space, and the Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA).

AK28 - Addressing Women's Security Needs