Defending a Coeducational Dartmouth
By Claire Johnston
Published on Thursday, June 22, 2006
To the Editor:
In response to Larry Morse '56's guest column, written for the occasion of his class' 50th reunion ("The Hill Winds Call Fifty Years Later," June 10), I would like to point out that Dartmouth is a member institution in the Ivy League, a league that was officially formed in 1954 (while he was enrolled as an undergraduate, I might add). For the sake of parity for women, and for the reason of following the example of other Ivy League institutions, I think Dartmouth made the right decision to go coed in the early 1970s.
As a young woman growing up in the same decade, I was interested in going to a college with high standards where I could also be a part of a relatively small community.
Today, I am a professional educator (13 years in librarianship and counting), and I cherish the fact that I was able to study at Dartmouth and to have had the opportunity to study at an institution with such a rich cultural history.
Secondly, I take offense to his comment that his four years at Dartmouth were four years in the sun, four years without the insistent pressure of meeting women's demands and manipulations. Is this not an overgeneralization, or what? I can attest to the fact that while I was on the Hanover campus, I did not make demands of, or manipulate, my fellow male classmates.