{"id":20547,"date":"2019-12-10T17:09:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T22:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vnvqhb17zxy.c.updraftclone.com\/?p=20547"},"modified":"2019-12-14T13:46:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T18:46:31","slug":"life-at-connecticut-college-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/2019\/12\/10\/life-at-connecticut-college-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Life at &#8220;Connecticut College for Women&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Fifty years ago in 1969, Connecticut College went co-ed. On Nov. 21, 2019, Rodi York \u201866 and Laurie Cameron \u201869 spoke about this transitional time at Conn in an \u201cAlumni Panel Discussion on Co-Education,\u201d which was hosted by Professor Trina Learned\u2019s First Year Seminar titled &#8220;Past, Present, and Future @ CT College.\u201d York was an art history major and loves museums. She worked at Mystic Seaport for 35 years and has been retired for 10 years now. After graduating from Conn, Cameron went to graduate school at Columbia University and went on to be a modern dancer in New York City. She taught dance at Conn for a bit before going to teach at Pomona College, and finally at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">York shared some \u201crules\u201d that were established at the college during her time as a student: no cars were allowed until second-semester senior year, no students were permitted to go to Bank Street, and students were required to attend monthly chapel services. Although not all students were religious, there was a noticeable religious presence on campus. The chaplains were influential in bringing students together in non-denominational meetings to discuss current events and issues. Students took comprehensive final exams after winter break (could you even imagine?), and exams were pass\/fail. If you failed, then you could not graduate. The chapel bell would ring if a whole class passed their exams. For freshman and sophomore year, there was a requirement<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>to take some form of physical education. The options included archery, fencing, swimming, and \u201cpre-ski,\u201d which entailed walking and jogging in the arboretum. Cro was used as the athletic center and all students were required to pass a swim test prior to meeting their physical education requirement. Students wore skirts to dinner, which was a sit-down setting, where you were served a single plate of food. On Fridays, however, you could wear slacks or jeans because it was a more casual buffet-style dinner. Apparently, the most memorable dish was \u201cMystery Mocha,\u201d which is some kind of chocolate-y dessert. Intriguing, right? Students had to sign-out to go downtown and had to be back by 11 pm, unless you went to a mixer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At the time, the transition to co-education seemed to be the thing to do. Both Brown<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>University and Yale University had \u201cCo-Education Weeks\u201d in the late 1960s, eventually going co-ed in 1971* and 1969, respectively. It was a time during which much attention was paid to \u201cleadership and the advancement of women,\u201d which the administration at Conn spoke of often.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Not all of the students were thrilled about Conn going co-ed. Some wanted to be at an all-women\u2019s college, but others felt that it was more realistic to have men as peers at the college because women would work alongside men in their careers. Going co-ed also created a more \u201ccasual\u201d atmosphere for dating and relationships. Before Conn admitted men, many women would take trains to go on a date with men from other schools. During this time, visiting men were allowed in student\u2019s rooms on Sundays between 1 o\u2019clock pm and 5 o\u2019clock pm. They were signed into the building and the bedroom door was required to remain open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Cameron and York discussed some of the most memorable historical moments that occurred during their time as students at Conn. In 1963, the USS Thresher, the naval nuclear-powered submarine, went missing. It was reported that 16 officers, 96 enlisted men, and 17 civilian technicians were on the submarine (according to Naval History and Heritage Command). The sadness of the event was felt greatly on campus because of the College\u2019s proximity to the Naval Base in Groton. Later that same year, on Nov. 22, President John F. Kennedy was killed. York recalled being able to hear radios reporting the news anywhere you went on campus that day. Betty Friedan released <i>The Feminine Mystique<\/i> in 1963, which was a particularly notable at an all women\u2019s college. In 1964, The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Residents all gathered in their living rooms to watch the band\u2019s debut televised performance in the U.S. When the Vietnam War began, the campus was active in protesting and promoting awareness. The ConnCensus student newspaper protested the war, and students and faculty alike participated in demonstrations. One chemistry professor taught about chemical warfare in class and even protested with students by occupying the main entrance of the college on Mohegan Avenue. York also mentioned the Griswold v. Connecticut case, which went before the Supreme Court in 1965, resulting in the ruling that Connecticut\u2019s ban of contraceptives for married couples violated the right to marital privacy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">To talk on the phone, you would have to wait for other residents to be done on the one or two landline phones available in the house. Papers were handwritten or typewritten. There were not quite as many washing machines. In fact, your sheets would be washed for you \u2014 and if you didn\u2019t put the sheets outside of your door to be washed, then you were fined $10. Adjusting to contemporary inflation, that is just short of $70. Pretty steep!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The living rooms (common room) were a lively scene in the 60\u2019s. Cameron and York recalled that there was a house mother in the \u201ccomplex\u201d and that some residence halls may have had \u201cjunior advisors.\u201d The living rooms fostered a communal environment in which the residents, from all four class years, would get together to play bridge and smoke. It was customary to gather in the living room after dinner. Sometimes residents would play a tune for their housemates on the piano. Every Wednesday evening, tea and cookies were delivered to the living rooms. This gathering encouraged students to take a break from their work and to engage socially with their friends and peers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Though the college is today still predominantly women (62%), the social scene that Cameron and York reminisced about has changed. We do not have weekly tea and the common rooms are used for study, if at all. Is this the result of the change in demographics or simply the passing of time, or maybe both? \u2022<\/p>\n<h6>Photo courtesy of Connecticut College Linda Lear Center.<\/h6>\n<p class=\"p1\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tmnf_excerpt\"><p>Fifty years ago in 1969, Connecticut College went co-ed. On Nov. 21, 2019, Rodi York \u201866 and Laurie Cameron \u201869 spoke about this transitional time at Conn in an \u201cAlumni Panel Discussion on Co-Education,\u201d which was hosted by Professor Trina Learned\u2019s First Year Seminar titled &#8220;Past, Present, and Future @ CT College.\u201d York was an &hellip;<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":62404,"featured_media":20549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/In-September-of-1969-Connecticut-College-began-accepting-men.-Photo-courtesy-of-Connecticut-College-Archives.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20658,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20547\/revisions\/20658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}