Dartmouth may not have become coeducational until 1972, but Lynn Lobban remembers drinking from a keg and smoking a cigar at the College during the 1968-1969 school year when she formally joined Chi Heorot fraternity. Lobban and the other eight members of the first group of women to enroll as students at the College -- dubbed the "Pioneering Nine" -- have been invited to return to Hanover for the 40th reunion of the Class of 1969 as newly adopted members of the class. Arthur Fergenson '69 said he located the women approximately three years ago and subsequently proposed their "adoption."
The College admitted nine women for the 1968-1969 academic year to improve the education of male drama students, Fergenson, who is a former drama student and member of The Dartmouth Staff, said. The women were enlisted to fill the female roles in performances and worked closely with Fergenson and his classmates.
These first nine women to be enrolled as Dartmouth students -- Jane Hastings Bataille, Katherine Gordon Brooks, Carol Louie Dudley, Nanalee Raphael, Barbara Washburn Rockwell, Alissa Bixon, Virginia Feingold Clark, Lynn Lobban and Geraldine Silk -- could also attend classes and receive credit, The Dartmouth reported in a 1969 article.
Despite their extensive involvement on campus, the College did not allow them to re-enroll after their first year and they could not acquire enough credits to become eligible for a Dartmouth degree, Fergenson said. The women were also excluded from subsequent alumni events.
Frustrated by the women's omission from College celebrations and curious about their current whereabouts, Fergenson began his search for them three years ago.
When he discovered that the College had no records of the women's attendance, Fergenson turned to Google and the social search engine Intelius. He said he located the women within 10 days in various places across the globe.
Fergenson and five other members of the Class of 1969 proposed in 2006 that the "nine pioneers of co-education" be made honorary members of their class. The women were officially adopted by a unanimous vote of present class members at the 2006 Homecoming, Fergenson said.
"I do believe that it is appropriate and necessary to complete the story of co-education and reach out to the women who spent a year at Dartmouth to help move to coeducation," Fergenson said.
Seven of the women have confirmed that they will attend the Class of 1969's 40th reunion this June, he said.
Several of the women said they appreciated receiving recognition for their time at Dartmouth, even though it took nearly 40 years, and look forward to renewing their connection with the College.
"It was very nice to be invited because the College sort of eradicated us," Dudley said. "We got blocked off from the history, so it was really nice to have the invitation extended."
The story of the "Pioneering Nine" is important, Fergenson said, as a symbol for today's Dartmouth women.
"There is now a substantial body of women who are Dartmouth alumni whose loyalty is important to the College for future enrollment and financial support," Fergenson said. "The stories of these women are important. These are fascinating stories, the quintessential stories of lost and found."
Denied on-campus housing, the women were forced to live in apartments above the present-day Everything but Anchovies restaurant, rather than in dormitories.
"If reports which clearly are genuine show that women who came in the early years of co-education felt pressure, isolation and discrimination, imagine what it would have been like for the nine," Fergenson said.
Then-College President John Sloan Dickey asserted that the women could not join fraternities, The Dartmouth reported in 1997. Yet, in addition to Lobban's joining Heorot, another woman joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Two women joined Foley House.
"Foley House was considered the artsy fraternity and it was fine to have them there," Fergenson, a member, said. "They were with us. They were part of the community. It was normal as can be."
Outside the theater department, the women said they found some of their closest friends through the fraternities and Folesy House.
"It was just a real honor and nothing that I could have imagined," Clark said of her membership of Foley House. "It made us feel very special."
The women petitioned administrators to stay at the College for a second year, but their request was denied, several of the women said.
"I remember standing at the Top of the Hop, and the president and Board of Trustees were there, and I got up and asked if I could stay and finish my undergraduate work there," Lobban said. "I said, 'What's wrong with us? You marry us!'"
In response to the College's decision, Fergenson, Lobban, Brooks and Raphael filed a complaint against Dartmouth with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but the EEOC did not respond until the women had dispersed, Fergenson said.
"Dartmouth was not prepared to let women matriculate and graduate," Dudley said.
After their year at the College, eight of the nine women pursued careers in the performing arts -- giving them a more successful record than that of Dartmouth's male drama students, Fergenson said.
