Well no, it turned out that it wasn’t. The colleges have been co-ed for so long that it seems natural and inevitable to us but getting there was a bumpy road indeed. Changing things is never easy in these institutions and something like close living relationships was especially fraught. This proposal is interesting: let the market decide but maintain diversity if possible. I guess the market decided everyone wants the same thing.
Bonus: I’ll be gone for a couple of days for some Out-of-house Repair. Be back Monday.
“Weiss”
Isn’t that simple, indeed. Got all of them wrong.
I was on that committee with Don Baker. The committee was comprised of students, faculty, alumni and trustees. It was a very complicated issue and discussions were sometimes very heated. However, in the end the committee voted unanimously to recommend 100% co-ed.
“Traditionally women should occupy balconies.” That made me laugh.
Are we talking Juliet, or is it because the women don’t tend to throw furniture and other deadly missiles off of balconies? I heard a faculty member say that coed colleges have significantly reduced the level of property damage in the colleges, as compared to the earlier years of sex segregation.
I agree! (SRC 1978)
Despite my living on-campus in the ’60s, coed colleges weren’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eyes at the time. Not a serious twinkle, at any rate. Given everything going on in society at the time, that’s probably a good thing.
That said, the idea of WRC denizens being ‘gentlemen’ also wasn’t a concept I remembering hearing at all.