|  |
Home > Collections > Rare Books and Manuscripts > Archives > Women at JHU: A History > Chapter 5
Johns Hopkins was founded as—and became famous as—a great graduate university. Undergraduate education always received less attention, and there was even an attempt, in the late 1920s, to eliminate it altogether. Thus, after the founding of Goucher College, that admission of women to undergraduate study at Hopkins was not a pressing issue until the 1960s, when many all-male bastions, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, broke with long tradition. One exceptional woman had taken the Bachelor of Arts degree at Hopkins long before the University officially granted that degree to women. Helena Roselle Long Watts studied mathematics under the New Plan, which allowed precocious students to begin graduate studies after two years of college. Mrs. Watts was unable to complete her graduate program, and, in recognition of her academic work, the University awarded her the B.A. in 1952. | 
In 1969, a student-faculty-administration committee studied the possibility of undergraduate coeducation and strongly recommended admitting women undergraduates. The committee held that coeducation would increase both the size and the diversity of the pool of qualified applicants (which was biased toward the natural sciences), improve the intellectual and social environment on campus, and eradicate a form of discrimination. On October 29, 1969, the Academic Council concurred with the Committee’s recommendation, and the Board of Trustees instituted the new policy with an official resolution on November 10. President Lincoln Gordon formed a Task Force on Undergraduate Coeducation, consisting of an administrator, a dean, two faculty members and two undergraduates. They were charged with exploring all aspects of coeducation and making specific recommendations. The committee considered such issues as the number of women to be admitted, admissions policies, the impact of coeducation on the collaboration between Hopkins and Goucher, housing arrangements, adjustments in the athletic program and facilities, possible requirements for additional services, and the budgetary consequences of coeducation. The University immediately began accepting applications for admission from women transfer students, who would life in off-campus apartments, and freshmen in the Baltimore area, who would live at home, since the freshman dormitories could not be adapted for women by the autumn of 1970. There were even a few Baltimore women (e.g., Nancy Chipman and Carol Williams) who entered early, for the spring semester of 1970. In September, ninety undergraduate women—twenty-one freshmen and sixty-nine transfer students—broke a ninety-four year old tradition and entered Johns Hopkins. Within a month of their admission, the women were voicing concerns over the University’s intention to postpone renovating the dormitories to accommodate freshman women. The Student Council organized a Convocation on Coeducation to discuss “the social isolation of female undergraduates.” In addition to complaining about housing, the women expressed their frustration with the treatment which the male students accorded them. As Rebecca Love said in a News-Letter article, “You feel like a cross between Gypsy Rose Lee and Typhoid Mary.” Clearly, the University had to address the problems of facilities and the unbalanced male/female ratio. | By November, the Office of Student Affairs had formed a committee, chaired by undergraduate Kathy Matthews, to deal with these issues. The University administration responded by going ahead with construction to adapt Adams and Baker Houses for women students, and the Director of Admissions projected that the proportion of women would increase to twenty-five percent of the next entering class. When the women expressed the need for increased security, an information center and a gynecologist on the infirmary staff, University officials heeded most of their requests. Nevertheless, rather that formulating a long-range plan for a changeover to a completely coeducational university, the administration chose to address problems piecemeal. As Dean George Benton said, “Let’s get what we need when we need it.” The undergraduate women used many strategies to improve their quality of life at Hopkins; they circulated petitions and organized a women’s group (variously known as the M. Carey Thomas Women’s Center of Feminist Alliance). Ultimately, improvement in the situation for undergraduate women came simply as a result of the gradual increase in their numbers and a consequent normalization of relations between the sexes. The percentage of undergraduate women in the School of Arts and Sciences climbed from 4.7% in 1970-71 to 38.2% in 1985-86; even the School of Engineering, 22.2% of the undergraduates enrolled were women. |  | In 1984, a Hopkins fraternity newsletter published an obscene article reflecting a pathological attitude toward women. This outraged sensibilities on campus and spurred the administration to set up an Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women. The seventeen member group of students, administrators, staff, and faculty members spent much of the 1984-85 academic year studying the status of women at Hopkins. The Committee concluded that Hopkins “remains a male institution with an atmosphere that is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to the concerns of women.” One of the most serious problems was the under-representation of women on the faculty; in 1984-85, only seven percent of the tenured and tenure-track faculty were women, as opposed to the sixteen percent average at Hopkins’s peer institutions. In addition, women made up three-quarters of the support staff, but few were in senior-level administrative positions. The Committee recommended hiring more women faculty, establishing a day care center and a women’s center, and initiating a program to facilitate upward mobility for women on the staff. Various offices within the administration have taken responsibility for addressing these concerns. Thus, in 1986, as in 1893, 1907 and 1969, the University has reached a turning point. There are opportunities to be seized and positive steps to be taken, so that Hopkins can finally embrace coeducation fully. The time is right for turning the tide and moving into a position of leadership in this field, in keeping with the Hopkins pioneering tradition. Women at JHU Index | Bibliography | Credits |
|
