Smith – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

Exchange Students at Bowdoin for Fall Semester 1969-1970

In the academic year of 1969-1970, Bowdoin College opened its doors to a program called the Twelve College Exchange. Students from Bowdoin as well as Smith, Amherst, Connecticut College, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Wheaton and Williams had the option to spend a semester or year at another institution within these twelve. The Exchange at Bowdoin was meant to introduce coeducation in an effort to see if men and women could co-exist on this small campus.

The first year Bowdoin participated, twelve female students chose to study at Bowdoin for either one or two semesters (Document GB, 9). A year later, in the fall of 1971, Bowdoin began to admit women into all classes. A grand total of 147 women came to the Bowdoin campus in order to take advantage of this newly coeducational institution. 64 women were admitted as first-years, expected to graduate in 1975, 29 were junior year transfers that would graduate in 1972, 39 were a part of the Twelve College Exchange and 15 were Special Students according to the November 1971 Alumni Magazine.

GB9 - Exchange Students at Bowdoin for Fall Semester 1969-1970

Student Twelve College Exchange Questionnaire Evaluation and Questionnaire Evaluations Summary of the first year of the Twelve College Exchange (1969-1970) – Sept. 1970

The Twelve-College Exchange was a program through which students from Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut College, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Welleseley, Wesleyan, Wheaton and Williams could apply to spend a semester or year at one of the other institutions listed. It began as the “Ten-College Exchange” but was expanded within months when Trinity, then Wellesley, expressed interest in joining. The Twelve-College Exchange arose as a response to the push towards coeducation; each school was single-sex at the time and wished to experiment with coeducation without completely committing to the process.

The academic year 1969-70 marked the first year of the Exchange and the first year of women students at Bowdoin. This document (Document SB, 15.1) is a student evaluation of the program. According to the Questionnaire Evaluation document (Document SB, 15.2) that summarizes the returned evaluations, approximately 26% of the students who participated the first year returned an evaluation and most of those evaluations were “overwhelmingly affirmative.” Many of the evaluations, like the selected evaluation (Document SB, 15.1), suggested the expansion of the program. This evaluation specifically described Bowdoin’s social atmosphere as “abnormal” because the nearest women were 2½ hours away. Expanding the Twelve College Exchange would increase the number of women at Bowdoin and perhaps improve this “abnormal” social atmosphere.

The student evaluations express the difference in social environment between colleges. On average, female students reported that male institutions had more “relaxed” and “friendlier” communities. Both sexes reported that one of the most significant parts of the Exchange was getting to know the opposite sex. Based on these evaluations, students from these institutions were ready and excited for coeducation. At Bowdoin, there sentiments reinforced the general feeling of staff and students that Bowdoin was ready to make the commitment.

Student Twelve College Exchange Questionnaire Evaluation - sb-15.1

Questionnaire Evaluations Summary of the first year of the Twelve College Exchange(1969-1970) - Sept. 1970 -sb-15.2-page-1

Questionnaire Evaluations Summary of the first year of the Twelve College Exchange(1969-1970) - Sept. 1970 -sb-15.2-page-2

Questionnaire Evaluations Summary of the first year of the Twelve College Exchange(1969-1970) - Sept. 1970 -sb-15.2-page-3

Questionnaire Evaluations Summary of the first year of the Twelve College Exchange(1969-1970) - Sept. 1970 -sb-15.2-page-4

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.