TO : Dudley Kay, President, Class of 1969
FROM: Arthur F. Fergenson
Peter Elias, Webmaster, Class of 1969
Jon Mark
Eric Forsythe
Robert M. Gippin
Richard Newbold
DATE: April 14, 2006
RE: Proposal for Honorary Class Membership for the Nine Pioneers of
Co-Education, 1968-69
We propose that the following nine pioneers of co-education be made honorary members of the Class of 1969:
Jane Hastings Bataille Alissa Bixon
Mons en Baroeul, France Palm Springs, CA
Katherine (“Kammy”) Gordon Brooks Virginia (“Ginny”) Feingold Clark
Cambridge, MA Los Angeles, CA
Carol Louie Dudley Lynn Lobban
London, England New York, NY
Nanalee Raphael Geraldine (“Geri”) Silk
Tucson, AZ Morris Plains, NJ
Barbara (“Binky”) Washburn Rockwell
Minneapolis, MN
BACKGROUND
1968-69
During the academic year 1968-69, nine women were enrolled as “special students” at the College. Although he, and later writers, identified the women as seven in number, George Alexander otherwise properly described their experience at Dartmouth in his page 2 article in the The Dartmouth Freshman Issue (Class of 1973), published Fall 1969, entitled “Women Begin Invading College.” (Attached hereto as Exhibit A.)
The reason given for the enrollment of the women was that the Drama Department “needed competent actresses to play female roles in its dramatic productions.” Alexander continues:
The girls [sic], all juniors, spent the year taking courses and acting in Dartmouth Players’ productions. As special students, they were allowed to take courses and receive credit for their work, but that credit could not be counted toward a Dartmouth degree.
As Alexander stated, the women did not know what to expect when they arrived in Hanover in September 1968. He stated, further:
Those students who got to know the coeds from classes or drama productions treated them simply as fellow students – several of the girls even pledged fraternities.
Even as early as three months after the women left Dartmouth, Alexander recognized the women’s significance in the struggle for coeducation:
Their presence probably was also a factor in the increased agitation for coeducation. They joined several demonstrations for coeducation, and also undertook activities on their own in [sic] of coeducation – writing letters to the alumni magazine and the trustees was one method they used in trying to convince the administration that Eleazar Wheelock would not spin in his grave if girls were allowed to earn an A.B. from Dartmouth.
Alexander reported that four of the women had sought to return to Dartmouth for their senior year. In fact, the women petitioned the College to allow them to continue at Dartmouth. They were turned down. As one of the sponsors of this proposal reported in The Dartmouth on April 16, 1969 (attached hereto as Exhibit B):
. . . Dean Thaddeus Seymour told one of the ‘special students in drama’ that the reason why she could not be admitted as a regular undergraduate is that she entered the school as a non-degree candidate and that it is impossible for a non-degree candidate to be admitted to degree status.
Three of the women went so far as to file a letter of complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), alleging wrongful discrimination by Dartmouth against women. On page 1 of the April 23, 1969 issue of The Dartmouth, John B. Joyce reported that Katherine Brooks, Lynn Lobban and Nanalee Raphael wrote a letter[1] urging action by the United States Government “to rid this school of a morally and sociologically indefensible institution: single-sex education.” (Attached hereto as Exhibit C.) The article concluded:
The drama students have also expressed a degree of frustration. As Miss Raphael lamented, “Because of the inaction of the administration, some of us have missed the deadline for applying to our home schools and have no idea where we will be next year.”
The EEOC proposed to investigate the complaint. The letter advising of the EEOC’s willingness to act was issued June 15, 1972, just before the first four-year class of women began their studies at Dartmouth. (See correspondence attached hereto as Exhibit D.)
Maura Menninger, in a November 12, 1997 article in The Dartmouth, “Coeducation did not come overnight” (www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=1997111201050), confirmed that a number of the special drama students joined fraternities.
. . . [T]wo of the seven female drama exchange students joined the brothers of the Foley House, causing the community to reflect on “yet another sacred bastion of the Dartmouth male succumbing to the coeducational movement.”
The women went ahead and joined Foley, despite College President John Sloan Dickey’s rejection of their pleas to become members.
Lynn Lobban joined Heorot and Carol Dudley joined Deke. In all, then, a total of four women joined fraternities during our senior year.
In 1969, approximately 70 women were admitted as one-year special students. None would receive a Dartmouth diploma. Alexander wrote: “This year, one of the undergraduate dormitories, Cohen Hall, has been set aside for an estimated 70 girls who will be studying at the College, but still only as special students.” Maura Henninger reported that the admission of these 60 women as special students caused the college to appoint the first high-ranking administrator, Katherine Stevens, assistant dean of the College.
In comparison to the treatment of the 60 special students in 1969-70, the nine women who were the vanguard of coeducation during our senior year did not have a female administrator to look after their interests, and were left to their own devices in obtaining housing: no dorm rooms were set aside for them.
1997-98: Celebrating the “first co-eds after 25 years.
In October 1997, the College celebrated 25 years of coeducation. “Women at Dartmouth” by Maura Henninger (October 17, 1997), The Dartmouth (www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=1997101707010). The celebratory weekend that Henninger wrote about “marks the official beginning of a year-long celebration dedicated to the presence of women on campus.” Henninger reported:
The first women to enter classes at the College were faced with challenges as well as opportunities. For them, a return to the campus is a commemoration of their roles as pioneers at the College.
“For women in early classes, we need some kind of catharsis,” Religion Professor Susan Ackerman ’80 said. “I am deeply devoted to Dartmouth of course because I came back to teach. But during the ‘70s, it was a difficult place for women to be. We all have the same kind of love-hate relationship. We love it, but we had a rough four years. To come back to this kind of weekend offers women of my generation an opportunity to come to terms with it and to come to peace with it.”
The weekend featured the giving of an award to Meryl Streep, “who attended the College for one term for a transfer program and is an honorary member of the Class of 1981.”
The nine women who attended Dartmouth College in 1968-69 were not invited to the 25th anniversary celebration. The College, in fact, has kept no records of the women at all: no names, no addresses, no grades, nothing, in fact, to testify to their presence for a year as the first full-time female students who attended Dartmouth during an academic year.
THE WOMEN
After attending Dartmouth, the nine special transfer students returned to their schools and received their degrees. They went on with their lives. And they remained close to their experience at Dartmouth.
Their histories
Nanalee Raphael, one of the petitioners to the EEOC and who deeply wanted to stay at the College, received her degree from Syracuse University in 1972, and for many years taught costume design at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She now designs costumes on a commission basis for theaters around the country.
Kammy Brooks graduated from Smith College in 1970. She returned to Dartmouth and worked as an assistant costume designer. She stayed in the area and became part of the Green Mountain Guild Repertory Theater along with Meryl Streep and Dartmouth graduates Greg Taylor and Peter Maeck. She performed with Pilobolus in 1980-81 as a guest artist on Broadway and in Canada and Paris. She now teaches Transcendental Meditation.
Binky (Wood) Rockwell writes plays and directs theater in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. She is married to Win Rockwell, Dartmouth ’70. Binky graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1978.
Alissa Bixon graduated from Wellesley in 1970 and from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine with an M.D. in 1982. She is an internist who has retired and now lives in Palm Springs, California. Her son, Thomas Freeze, is a member of the Dartmouth Class of ’07.
Carol Dudley is a casting director in London UK. She has a home in Sharon, Vermont and next summer will direct a play at the Thetford Community Theater. Carol received her undergraduate degree from Vassar College in 1971.
Lynn Lobban is an actress and singer in New York. She has released an album on LML label. She received her BA from Goddard College in 2004 and is slated to receive her MFA from Goddard College in 2006.
After graduating in Drama from Mount Holyoke College in 1970, Jane Hastings Bataille earned two degrees at the Sorbonne, License de Lettres and a masters in contemporary British theater. She now teaches at the Université de Tours in its Department of Performing Arts.
Virginia Feingold Clark is the daughter of Meyer William (Bill) Feingold, Class of 1935 (deceased). After failing to continue at Dartmouth, Ginny followed a friend to Wayne State University where she received her degree in theater in 1970. In 1971, she co-founded the Boston Repertory Theatre in downtown Boston, which became an Equity company and lasted until 1977 after it lost its federal endowment funds. She moved to Los Angeles, obtained some small acting roles, did some commercials, and eventually left the Business. She is currently a certified hypnotherapist in Los Angeles.
Geraldine Silk returned to Dartmouth for a summer to teach a dance theater workshop for A Better Chance. She received an undergraduate degree from Drew University in 1968 (being the only non-junior among the nine women), and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971. Geri taught acting, directing and stage movement at San Francisco State and the University of Vermont. After returning to New Jersey, she became registered as both a dance movement and drama therapist. She works with people with special needs, specializing in helping those with Down syndrome.
Their feelings for the College
After the women were contacted by the sponsors of this proposal, each of the women expressed a desire to be an honorary member of our Class. They were thrilled to talk about this time of their lives and to reconnect with the men and women whom they experienced it with.
Lynn Lobban wrote: “I hope you [all the women] are well and happy and I cannot wait until that reunion in 1009! I will be 60 or almost 60 by then! Unbelievable.” She also wrote: “There are so many pivotal memories from that year at Dartmouth. I have visited the place many times on my own just to walk around and remember.”
Ginny Feingold told her mother, 91, about the prospect of finally being recognized by the College through honorary membership in our Class. “ . . . [S]he teared up. She had 3 daughters but always wanted a boy so he could go to Dartmouth. She was a major fan of the ‘Big Green’ and went to all my father’s reunions. I grew up going to all Dartmouth/Yale football games.” Ginny features her year at Dartmouth on her website for her business. She also wrote: “I am amazed and grateful for this opportunity to reconnect with a part of my life I rarely talk about as I had lost touch with everyone. Thanks to you wonderful guys for remembering us, it feels so good.”
Kammy Brooks wrote that being contacted “stirred memories of my time at Dartmouth as a ‘pioneering’ coed . . . . Over the years since being at Dartmouth I have often desired to be more in touch with the college and the people I knew there.”
Nanalee Raphael wrote: “And a huge WAH – HOO - WAH!” for the idea. “I’m looking forward to communicating with you all, and hope we can all be part of a reunion in the near future.”
Jane Hastings Bataille wrote: “You found me!! I’m thrilled!!!” Jane has maintained contact with George Pinkham and Peter Elias. She has described meeting John Nutt ’68 in Paris in 2004. She writes:
Needless to say, I would be absolutely thrilled to be an honorary member of the Class of ’69 from Dartmouth. There is no doubt that the eight months that I spent on the campus in Hanover (2nd semester and summer) were extremely rich in relations, experiences and contributed greatly to my knowledge and practical experience of theatre.
Carol Dudley virtually screamed with delight about the possibility of becoming a member of our Class and of being honored by the College. She visits the United States often and has maintained a home in Sharon, Vermont. Binky Woods was similarly enthusiastic.
The women of Dartmouth have retained an affection for Dartmouth and passionately hold memories of their year with us in Hanover. Each one has stated that she would be honored by being made an honorary member of the Class of 1969.
THE PROPOSAL
History
Ever since the celebration of 25 years of coeducation at Dartmouth, the first-named sponsor believed that the women who went to college with our Class should be given due recognition. About a year ago, he confirmed the identities of the women with Jon Mark. About six months ago, Peter Elias encouraged the first-named sponsor to write an article on the women for the Class website. Peter and the first-named sponsor knew the women from Foley House and the Drama Department.
After further discussions with Peter and Jon, the first-named sponsor decided to urge the honorary membership to the Class. The President of the Class, to whom this memorandum is addressed, became an enthusiastic supporter, believing, as he said, that it held nothing but positives for the Class.
The next step was to find the women. That took about 10 days, starting in March 2006. All nine were found, with the help of Google, Intellius, and helpful clues on the whereabouts of our woman now in France.
The proposal was written up in draft form. The draft informal presentation was sent to the current and past officers of the Class and received a consensus approval. We were then asked to embody the proposal in a more complete presentation.
The College
The Class President has communicated to our honorary member, Susan Wright, about the proposal. She is enthusiastic and has conveyed that enthusiasm to her husband, the President of the College.
Susan Wright saw Dudley at a reception in Miami, and introduced Dud to her husband as follows: “Why this is Dudley Kay, President of the GREAT Class of 1969, dear. And what your Class is contemplating for those pioneers of coeducation is FABULOUS!” She was wearing her name tag as “Susan Wright, ‘69H.” She then escorts Dud to Nels Armstrong, who handles honorary class memberships, and says to Nels: “Do you know Dudley Kay, President of the GREAT Class of ’69?” Susan asks Nels to tell Dud about conferring honorary class membership, because “this GREAT Class is about to do the most WONDERFUL thing for nine coeducation pioneers who deserve to be recognized.”
The Chair of the Department of Theater is as enthusiastic as Susan Wright. He suggested that these women, almost all of whom were in the performing arts and some of whom remain there, could be presented as role models for Dartmouth women now. He suggested the possibility of honoring them at the annual Hopkins Center arts awards celebration held every Spring. The celebration involves the cooperation of the President of the College. The Chair believes that the story of these women is important for the College, for his Department, and for the students he is teaching.
The Proposal
We propose to make the nine women honorary members of the Class of 1969.
(a) Criteria for honorary membership.
The decision to make someone an honorary member is entirely up to the Class. The Class of 1969 has one honorary member, Susan Wright. At the time that her husband was Dean of Faculty, she was attending an alumni function in Boston when Dick Glovsky and Clint Harris approached her and more or less casually mentioned that the Class of 1969 ought to have an Honorary Female Member and would she be interested if so offered? She was. There was no meeting, no vote, no process. She was never a Dartmouth student.
(b) Rights of an honorary member.
At the option of the Class, an honorary member can have all rights but one: voting for Trustees of the College. Honorary members have all other privileges: Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, newsletter, reunions, dues letters, alumni fund solicitations.
(c) Precedents.
Apart from our own decision to make Susan Wright an honorary member of the Class of 1969, Meryl Streep was made an honorary member of the Class of 1981. She graduated from Vassar College in 1971. She also has a degree from Yale Drama School. Her son went to Dartmouth. She attended a term at Dartmouth, but well before 1981 (which was two years after she won her first Oscar).
Naming these women as honorary members sets no precedent. The women are sui generis. They were the only full-time students who attended an academic year during our time and who were not members of any other class. Everyone else who was a full-time student was a man.
(d) Cost to the Class.
A host of graduates are members of the Class of 1969 and don’t pay dues. In order to complete the process of integration into the Class, the sponsors of this proposal agree to pay the “nut” for every honorary member for the first year. The net cost to the Class will be zero.
ARGUMENT
The College spent a year honoring the pioneers of coeducation, to help those women, who endured a difficult time at Dartmouth, allowing them to achieve catharsis. The nine women we seek to honor were the forgotten true pioneers of coeducation. They made do in fewer numbers with less support than their later compatriots. They did not complain about their fate; all that they wanted was to stay at Dartmouth and proudly carry with them a Dartmouth degree for the rest of their lives.
These women did not participate in the coeducation celebrations at the College. The College did not even remember who they were. The sponsors of this proposal did and now seek to give them something that they desire: to be members of our Class, to be our “fellows” again after 37 years apart. Granting the proposal will cost our Class absolutely nothing. Nine women will be added to our rolls. We will simply be giving recognition to a fact: these women were our fellow students at Dartmouth.
Peter Elias has written:
I think a valid case for adopting these women into our class is based on:
1. They did indeed participate as full members of the College community and bonded more with the Class of 1969 than other classes during that year, and would have stayed had the college said yes to their overt and well argued request.
2. They are a part of the 1969 family in that they maintain ties and friendships. (We can’t say that about everyone who spent 4 years with us and graduated with us, can we?)
3. We have happily and without controversy welcomed widows to participate in events, even those who didn’t attend ANY classes.
4. There is no precedent to support a minimum length of time or number of courses as prerequisite. The college considers anyone who matriculated with a class as to be a member of that class, including those who transferred or dropped out (or died – David Koop) without graduating. Matriculate derives from the Latin matricula, diminutive of matrix for mother, and means public roll or list or register. Their names were certainly entered into the register – just not with permanent ink.
5. It appears that they were on campus, not as a few random students who happened to be exchange students for a semester, but as part of a quiet plan to move the institution to co-education. They came, they served with honor, and when the institution moved forward they were quietly dropped from the institution’s consciousness.
These women came and spent a year in Hanover (not a semester). They took the same classes we did. Ate the same meals. They participated very actively in many parts of D life, including but not limited to theater, music, politics. They made lasting (life long) friendships. They asked to stay another year and be part of the Dartmouth community and were turned down, not because they were not qualified, but because the College was not yet politically in a place they wished to acknowledge a move toward co-education.
It is the right thing to do. We are already known as the GREAT CLASS of ’69, and our initiative will be well known throughout the Dartmouth community. This is a terrific story: a forgotten chapter of Dartmouth history brought to light, wrongs righted, memory served, friends reunited. Who could ask for anything more? Not even Cole Porter.
Men of Dartmouth give a rouse!
[1] Virginia Feingold Clark also petitioned to stay at Dartmouth but did not sign the EEOC complaint.