Somehow, we are already in the latter half of the Digital Humanities course, and are starting the final project journey. Our group, group 3, is interested in education and educational access and equality — particularly in how our own institutions have approached the issue. I go to Vassar, which is famously a Seven Sisters school. This means that Vassar is a historically women’s college, and only became co-educational in 1969. It has such a reputation for being a women’s college that people assume to this day that it’s women only until I tell them otherwise. The initial research that I have done revolves around Vassar’s own mention and publication of their history with co-ed schooling.
Their History of Co-Education gives a background as to why Vassar chose to go co-ed to begin with, giving insight to what students they were looking to have at Vassar. It details how Vassar, as one of the Seven Sisters, was tightly aligned with the neighboring Ivy League colleges, many of which were still all-men. In 1967, Yale University offered a merger with Vassar, which was the catalyst for Vassar’s decision to not only stay in Poughkeepsie but also grow to become co-educational. Reports from the college showed that students believed staying all-female would result in a “loss of perspective”. An article from Vassar’s Miscellany News dated February 21st, 1968, writes about a similar historically women’s college Sarah Lawrence and their recent admittance of men. Sarah Lawrence and Vassar have a shared history, as former Vassar president Henry McCracken went on to found Sarah Lawrence. There is lots of information within Vassar’s digital archive in regards to the temperament around co-education at the time, and how both students and administration were reacting to it.
I will be further researching Vassar collections to find personal narratives, article postings, and more that refer to Vassar’s move towards co-education, both prior to it and the reactions afterwards. I also hope to find data on Vassar’s history of admitting women of color into the college, as that has it’s own history and influence. The Vassar digital library has a section on the college’s history, and subsequently race and ethnicity, a site I will surely be looking into. I hope to research Vassar’s impact on gender equality in education as an individual institution, but also how that message may reflect itself on the surrounding environment.
