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Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records, 1955-1969 (bulk 1967-1969): Finding Aid

AC184

Gardner Patterson

Published in 2003

©2006 Princeton University Library

Summary Information

Creator:

Princeton University. Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton.

Title and dates:

Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records, 1955-1969 (bulk 1967-1969)

Abstract:

The Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records contain the working papers and correspondence of Gardner Patterson, Committee Chair, and his assistants. In June 1967 the Board of Trustees charged the Committee with the study of “the advisability and feasibility” of enlarging the University's role in the education of women. The final report, “The Education of Women at Princeton,” was submitted to the Trustees in July 1968. Adopting the recommendation of the Committee, they voted in favor of coeducation the following January and appointed an Ad-Hoc Committee to advise on how to implement their decision. The collection contains some papers Patterson received as a member of this Ad-Hoc Committee, and drafts of its final report, “The Education of Undergraduate Women at Princeton: An Examination of Coordinate Versus Coeducational Patterns.”

Size:

2.52 linear feet (6 archival boxes)

Call number:

AC184

Location:

Princeton University Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
Princeton University Archives.
Princeton, New Jersey 08540 USA

Language(s) of material:

English.

Storage note:

This collection is stored onsite at the Mudd Manuscript Library.

History of the Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton

In the changing social climate of the 1960s, a time when society's political and social status quo was being questioned by a younger and well-educated generation, universities faced many challenges. Equal opportunities for women in the workplace and in academia was one of the issues at stake. Age-old barriers that had kept women from participating in some of America's premier institutions of higher learning were being reexamined. By the beginning of 1969 Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, and Princeton were the only remaining members of the Ivy League whose doors had not been officially opened to women.

In its competition with other universities, Princeton's “old boy” image was becoming an increasing obstacle to attracting good students. By the mid-1960s a dwindling number of students applying to Princeton turned out to be first-class both academically and extracurricularly. And of those accepted by the University the best decided to go somewhere else. In December 1966 Yale University and the all-female Vassar College announced their intention to study the possibility of a merger. This constituted a serious threat for Princeton. In March 1966 a subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on Undergraduate Life had already recommended coeducation as one of the remedies for what the committee termed the University's “unhealthful social climate.” Women were not entirely unknown to Princeton. At the end of the previous century Princeton was associated, although not legally connected, with the short-lived Evelyn College (1887-1897). As graduate students, women had been attending Princeton since 1961. In 1963 the Critical Languages Program was introduced to the University, which enabled up to 30 male and female undergraduates from other colleges to spend one year in Princeton. Following Yale's lead, an affiliation with the all-female Sarah Lawrence College was informally explored, but on June 2, 1967 President Robert F. Goheen (1957-1972) announced that the two institutions had “agreed that the unique identity and role of Sarah Lawrence would not be aided by their following the Vassar route.” Only twelve days later he announced that the Board of Trustees had authorized a study of the “advisability and feasibility of enlarging the University's role in the education of women.”

Prior to the decision of the Trustees, Goheen had expressed his views in an interview with The Daily Princetonian about the inevitability of moving towards coeducation. On May 26, 1967 he wrote a letter about the subject to Gardner Patterson, professor of economics and international affairs and a former director of the Woodrow Wilson School. He included the Princetonian article and noted that it “embarrassed” him somewhat, as it appeared before the Trustees could debate the question. However, Goheen thought he could “secure” an official authorization to make a serious, systematic study of the options. He hoped that Patterson would be willing to conduct a study of “the educational and financial implications of the various possible ways Princeton might try to move into coeducation.” Patterson, who was in Geneva at the time, replied that he agreed with Goheen's views, would be happy to conduct the research, and his “heart would be in it, too.” When, just as Goheen had hoped, the Trustees authorized the study in June, Patterson was appointed Committee chair. Other members of the Committee included Edward Sullivan, Dean of the College, John Moran '51, general manager of planning, plant and properties, Arthur Horton '42, director of development, and faculty members Thomas Carver, Michael Danielson, E.D.H. Johnson '34, and Thomas Scanlon '63. David Kershaw, director of graduate admissions at the Woodrow Wilson School served as staff assistant, while Patterson asked George Berry, special assistant to Goheen, to personally assist the committee. Provost William Bowen and William Lippincott '41, Executive Director of the Alumni Council, were added at a later stage to the Committee.

The Committee's final report, submitted to the Trustees in July 1968, and in Princeton circles known as the “Patterson Report,” was made public in September when it appeared as a special edition of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Backed by 34 statistical tables, the report concluded that coeducation would benefit Princeton socially, intellectually, and culturally. The Committee recommended increasing the present number of undergraduates with an additional 1,000 female students “as quickly as funds can be raised to accomplish it.” The advantages of coeducation were deemed lost if the ratio of men to women was more than three to one. The report included a minority statement by Arthur Horton '42, who disagreed with the conclusions reached. Throughout the year he had voiced the concerns of many conservative alumni who did not support the admission of women to their Alma Mater. Horton's chief fear was the negative implications for traditional fund raising among alumni, a worry shared by many within the University.

In January 1969 the Trustees voted 24-8 in favor of the Patterson recommendations. Following this significant affirmation, an Ad-Hoc Committee of Faculty-Administrators and Students, headed by President Goheen, was appointed by the Trustees to consider how Princeton could best implement the decision to educate undergraduate women. Their report, which examined coordinate versus coeducational patterns using five models, recommended full academic and social integration and a fixed ratio of men and women. In April the Trustees voted to admit 90 female freshmen and 40 transfers in September and to increase numbers gradually over the years to at least 1,000 women. When the time of admission came the numbers had already increased. During the first weekend after Labor Day in 1969, 171 women arrived in Princeton as candidates for bachelor's degrees, among them 101 out of 921 members of the freshman Class of 1973. In his concluding remarks at the 1973 Commencement President Bowen declared, “The women among us have now added their gifts of fallibility to our own, and I think we are a far better university - and a far richer community of people - for them.”

Description

The Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records contain correspondence, subject files, drafts, notes, and research materials that were generated and accumulated during the time Gardner Patterson was Chair of the Committee and a member of the subsequently appointed Ad-Hoc Committee.

Arrangement

Organized into the following series:

• Series 1: Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1966-1969)
• Subseries 1A: Internal Correspondence, 1966-1968
• Subseries 1B: External Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1967-1969)
• Series 2: Subject Files, 1955-1968 (bulk 1967-1968)
• Series 3: Drafts, 1967-1968
• Series 4: General, 1963-1968
• Series 5: Ad-Hoc Committee on the Implementation of the Education of Women, 1968-1969

Access and Use

Access

Collection is open for research use.

Restrictions on Use and Copyright Information

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the University Archivist. Copyright is held by the Trustees of Princeton University.

Related Materials

Related Archival Material

Arthur Horton Collection on Coeducation, 1968-1980 (AC#039)

Communications Office Records, 1922-1995 [bulk 1955-1980] (AC#168) (See: Coeducation at Princeton files)

Historical Subject Files, circa 1900-present (AC #109) (See: Coeducation boxes)

Processing and Other Information

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Helene van Rossum in 2002. Finding aid written by Helene van Rossum in 2002.

Descriptive Rules Used

Finding aid content adheres to that prescribed by Describing Archives: A Content Standard.

Encoding

Machine-readable finding aid encoded in EAD 2002 by Techbooks and Cristela García-Spitz on October 20, 2006.

Finding aid written in English.

Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records, Box and Folder Number; University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Subject Headings

These materials have been indexed in the Princeton University Library online catalog using the following terms. Those seeking related materials should search under these terms.

• Princeton University -- Admission.
• Princeton University -- History -- Sources.
• Coeducation -- New Jersey -- Princeton.
• Sex discrimination in education.
• Women -- New Jersey -- Princeton -- Education.
• Women college students -- Education.
• Correspondence.
• Minutes.
• Reports.
• Patterson, Gardner.

Browse other finding aids related to the following terms:

• Princeton University

Contents List

1. Series 1: Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1966-1969) Series Description Series 1: Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1966-1969), consists of two subseries which are alphabetically arranged: Internal Correspondence, 1966-1968 and External Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1967-1969). The internal correspondence includes correspondents from within and outside the Committee, including President Goheen. The most extensive correspondence is from Committee member and director of development Arthur J. Horton '42, who voiced the concerns and opposition of conservative alumni, and sometimes wrote several memoranda a day. Alumni opposition, and its implication for traditional fundraising, is the subject of other internal correspondence, much of which can also be found among the subject files in Series 2. The external correspondence consists mainly of alumni correspondence and correspondence with presidents and representatives of other universities and colleges. The latter include correspondence and memoranda to the files concerning visits.

2. Subseries 1A: Internal Correspondence, 1966-1968

3. A-Z, 1966 Dec-1968 Sep

   Box 1, Folder 1

4. Berry, George, 1967 Sep-1968 Mar

   Box 1, Folder 2

5. Bowen, William G., 1967 Jul-1968 Nov

   Box 1, Folder 3

6. Committee on the Education of Women, 1967 Nov-1968 Jun

   Box 1, Folder 4

7. Dalrymple, Willard, 1967 Oct-1968 Apr

   Box 1, Folder 5

8. Danielson, M.N., 1968 Mar

   Box 1, Folder 6

9. Daily Princetonian, The, 1967 Dec-1968 May

   Box 1, Folder 7

10. Goheen, Robert F., 1967 Jul-1968 Sep

    Box 1, Folder 8

11. Horton, Arthur, 1967 Nov-1968 May

    Box 1, Folder 9

12. Lippincott, William D., 1968 Mar-1968 May

    Box 1, Folder 10

13. Mestres, Ricardo A., 1968 Jun-1968 Dec

    Box 1, Folder 11

14. Osander, John T. (“Jack”), 1968 Feb-1968 Sep

    Box 1, Folder 12

15. Princeton Alumni Weekly, 1967 Nov-Dec

    Box 1, Folder 13

16. Sullivan, E.D., 1967 Sep-1968 Mar

    Box 1, Folder 14

17. Undergraduate Assembly Committee on Coeducation (Richard Darby and Peter Kaminsky), 1968 May-Jun

    Box 1, Folder 15

18. Vivian, Leslie (“Bud”), 1968 Mar-Sep

    Box 1, Folder 16

19. Subseries 1B: External Correspondence, 1964-1969 (bulk 1967-1969)

20. Alumni

21. A-H, 1967-1969

    Box 1, Folder 17

22. I-Z, 1967-1968

    Box 1, Folder 18

23. Colleges and Universities A-Z, 1967-1969

    Box 1, Folder 19

24. Colgate University, 1967 Sep-1968 Sep

    Box 1, Folder 20

25. Connecticut College (Charles E. Shain), 1967 Feb-1968 Sep

    Box 1, Folder 21

26. Franklin and Marshall College, 1967 Nov-1969 Jan

    Box 1, Folder 22

27. General Correspondence A-Z, 1967 Oct-1969 Jan

    Box 2, Folder 1

28. Hamilton College, Kirkland College, 1964-1968

    Box 2, Folder 2

29. Harvard University, Radcliffe College, 1967 Aug-1968 Jun

    Box 2, Folder 3

30. Kenyon College, 1965-1968

    Box 2, Folder 4

31. Lawrence University (Lawrence and Downer Colleges), 1968, Jan-Feb

    Box 2, Folder 5

32. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), 1964, 1968 May

    Box 2, Folder 6

33. Rutgers University (Douglass College), 1967 Oct-1969 Jan

    Box 2, Folder 7

34. Smith College, 1967 Oct-1968 Sep

    Box 2, Folder 8

35. Stanford University, 1967 Jun-1968 Dec

    Box 2, Folder 9

36. Union College, 1968 May-Sep

    Box 2, Folder 10

37. Wesleyan University, 1968 Feb-Jun

    Box 3, Folder 1

38. Yale University, Vassar College, 1967 Apr-1968 Sep

    Box 3, Folder 2

39. Series 2: Subject Files, 1955-1968 (bulk 1967-1968) Series Description Series 2: Subject Files, 1955-1968 (bulk 1967-1968), include topical correspondence and papers, alphabetically arranged. The initial correspondence between Goheen and Patterson and others about the set-up of the Committee can be found under “Committee on the Education of Women.” Internal correspondence concerning meetings with Princeton alumni all over the country is located in “Princeton Alumni Association and Clubs.” The files on “Feasibility Study” contain the responses from University administrators and departments in a survey about the implications of adding 1000 women undergraduates, which found expression in the final chapter of the Patterson report. The majority of the files concern statistics that were gathered and the questionnaires that were sent to faculty, students, alumni, high school seniors, and the Princeton School Committee.

40. Committee on the Education of Women:

41. Initial Correspondence About Set-up, 1967 May-Oct

    Box 3, Folder 3

42. Conference on Co-Education, Saratoga Springs, 1968 Feb-Apr

    Box 3, Folder 4

43. Educational Facilities Laboratory, 1967 Jul and undated

    Box 3, Folder 5

44. Faculty with Previous Teaching Experience of Women and New Appointees, 1963-1967

    Box 3, Folder 6

45. Feasibility Study:

46. Implications of Adding 1000 Women

47. 1968 Mar-July

    Box 3, Folder 7

48. (Tables and Calculations), [1968]

    Box 3, Folder 8

49. Female Graduates at Princeton, 1967 Sep-Nov

    Box 3, Folder 9

50. Grants:

51. Carnegie Corporation and Other, 1967 Sep-1968 Oct

    Box 3, Folder 10

52. Interrelated Institutes and Mergers, 1967 and circa 1968

    Box 3, Folder 11

53. Princeton Alumni Association and Clubs, Meetings with, 1967 Oct-1968 Nov

    Box 3, Folder 12

54. Questionnaires:

55. Alumni, 1968 Jan and undated

    Box 3, Folder 13

56. Faculty, 1967 Sep-1968 Jan and undated

    Box 4, Folder 1

57. High School Seniors, 1967 Sep-1968 May

    Box 4, Folder 2

58. Princeton School Committee, 1968 Mar and undated

    Box 4, Folder 3

59. Students, 1967 Oct and undated

    Box 4, Folder 4

60. Statistics:

61. Annual Giving, circa 1967

    Box 4, Folder 5

62. College Ratios, circa 1968

    Box 4, Folder 6

63. Course Selection

64. General and Comparisons, 1963-1967 and undated

    Box 4, Folder 7

65. Harvard University and Radcliffe College, [1967]

    Box 4, Folder 8

66. Princeton University, 1957-1967

    Box 4, Folder 9

67. Stanford University, 1961, 1966

    Box 4, Folder 10

68. Vassar College, [1967]

    Box 4, Folder 11

69. Degrees Conferred, Arranged by College, 1955-1967

    Box 4, Folder 12

70. Library Use, Fall Term 1967, 1968

    Box 4, Folder 13

71. Student Attrition, Scholarships, and Miscellaneous Data, 1960-1968

    Box 4, Folder 14

72. Students' Reasons for Selecting Other Colleges, [1967]

    Box 4, Folder 15

73. Women Enrollments in Graduate Departments, Stanford/Harvard/Yale, 1967

    Box 4, Folder 16

74. Women's Occupations in Science and Other Fields, [1967-1968], 1968

    Box 5, Folder 1

75. Series 3: Drafts, 1967-1968 Series Description Series 3: Drafts, 1967-1968, contains various drafts of the four chapters of the Patterson report, its introduction, summary, and conclusion. They are heavily annotated by Patterson and, in most cases, dated. Correspondence concerning versions of the drafts may be found among the internal correspondence in Series 1.

76. The Education of Women at Princeton:

77. Chapter One, 1967 Dec-1968 May

    Box 5, Folder 2

78. Chapter Two, 1967 Dec-1968 May

    Box 5, Folder 3

79. Chapter Three, 1967 Dec-1968 May

    Box 5, Folder 4

80. Chapter Four

81. 1968 May-Jun

    Box 5, Folder 5

82. 1968 Jun and undated

    Box 5, Folder 6

83. Miscellaneous, 1967 Nov-1968 Feb and undated

    Box 5, Folder 7

84. Preface, Summary, and Conclusions, 1968 May-July

    Box 6, Folder 1

85. Series 4: General, 1963-1968 Series Description Series 4: General, 1963-1968, contains minutes, a progress report, notes, research materials, and other miscellaneous items. Patterson wrote his progress report to the Trustees in January 1968 at the request of Goheen to ensure their trust, cooperation, and identification with the problems faced. Patterson's notes include memoranda he dictated as “Notes to the Files.”

86. Literature concerning Co-Education and Educational Needs of Women, 1963-1968 and undated

    Box 6, Folder 2-3

87. Minutes, 1967 Nov, 1968 Feb

    Box 6, Folder 4

88. Miscellaneous, 1967-1968

    Box 6, Folder 5

89. Newspaper Clippings, 1967-1968

    Box 6, Folder 6

90. Notes (David Kershaw), circa 1967-1968

    Box 6, Folder 7

91. Notes to the Files and Other Notes (Gardner Patterson), 1967 Sep-1968 May and undated

    Box 6, Folder 8

92. Report to the Board of Trustees (Transcript), 1968 Jan 13

    Box 6, Folder 9

93. Series 5: Ad-Hoc Committee on the Implementation of the Education of Women, 1968-1969 Series Description Series 5: Ad-Hoc Committee on the Implementation of the Education of Women, 1968-1969, includes some correspondence, papers, and drafts of the Ad-Hoc Committee's final report, the majority of which was actually written in March 1968, prior to the establishment of the Ad-Hoc Committee.

94. Correspondence and Papers, 1968 Dec-1969 Feb

    Box 6, Folder 10

95. Drafts of “The Education of Undergraduate Women at Princeton: An Examination of Coordinate Versus Coeducational Patterns”, 1968 Mar, 1969 Mar

    Box 6, Folder 11

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Permanent URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/pn89d660w

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