Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019 - 27

student government roles," Constantinople
says. "It was nice to see."

CONTINUED R ESISTANCE

Vassar Archives

Long after coeducation began at Vassar,
there remained alumnae who opposed the
presence of men on campus. The college
hosted a series of conversations between
alumnae and new male recruits in those
early years. Not all of them went well. Thea
Schell Gutman-Farris '76 recalled a
particularly painful episode in which her
boyfriend tried to address a group of
alumnae during a forum in Alumnae House.
"He was already so nervous his knees were
shaking. I had to put my hand on his back so
he wouldn't fall over," she says. "But they
raked him over the coals. It was awful. After
a while, I'd had enough of that and I told
them, 'We need men at colleges like Vassar.
Otherwise, how will we ever hope to create a
society in which men see women as equals?'"
There were also students who felt that
coeducation had been forced upon them.
Jo Ann Citron '71 counts herself among
them. "When I matriculated," she recalls,
"Vassar was swapping women for men in
the exchange program. In my sophomore or
junior year, men were allowed to transfer.
Then in my senior year, the college admitted its first class of freshmen men. I think
I resented having the rug pulled out from
me in my upper class years, especially when
my senior year-the capstone of the entire
process from kindergarten on-was defined
by the presence of men. . . . I felt that in going
coed, Vassar was betraying what I understood the college to stand for-a profound
commitment to women's education, which
had always meant single-sex education."
But, she says, "In response to resistance,
Vassar promised that this would be
'coeducation with a difference.' There
would always be more women than men
on campus, men would not dominate the
faculty, and Vassar's historical commitment
to women would not diminish. I think that
promise has been kept."

LOOK ING BACK
Anne Constantinople is convinced that Alan
Simpson saved Vassar College by daring to

question the status quo. "To me there's no
question about that," she declares. "The
decision to go to Yale started everything
that led to the decision to become coeducational, which then led to the vitality and
endurance of the institution as it is now."
Gerry Laybourne agrees. Noting the
countless social benefits of coed Vassar,
she says, "Some of my best friends in the
world are men who went to Vassar. They
were set up for a lifetime of not being
nervous around women, especially smart
ones. They do well in the world because
they are comfortable and energized
listening to other viewpoints. I don't think
men who went to traditional men's schools
that added on women got that same
benefit."
Rick Teller says that, even today, many
of his lifelong friends are women-"not exes

or lovers-just friends, the kind of friends
you might see infrequently, but when you
do see them you pick up right where you
left off. So many other men just never pass
that barrier."
One of Teller's closest college friends
was Jo Ann Citron, who initially opposed
coeducation. She had, however, ended up
befriending many of her male classmates,
and says, "I have liked every single man I've
met who matriculated after I left." She also
has several friends whose children have
gone to Vassar, and, she says, "Each and
every one of them is happy. No one has left.
No one has transferred. No one has merely
endured. They have loved it. It was admirable
for Vassar to have taken such a risk-and it
was a risk." Today, she thinks of Vassar as
"a place that has the courage of its convictions."

VA S S A R Q U A R T E R LY

27
Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019
