Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019 - 32

REFLECTIONS ON COEDUCATION

Stephen Hankins | '85
AT 17, IT WAS CLEAR
TO ME THAT VASSAR
OFFERED SERIOUS
LEARNING WITH A
MINIMUM OF
CONVENTION.
VASSAR WAS
FOUNDED TO BE
REVOLUTIONARY AND
ICONOCLASTIC.

Stephen Hankins is a partner
in the law firm Riley Safer 
Holmes & Cancila LLP, with
offices in Ann Arbor, New York,
San Francisco, and Chicago. He
currently serves as President
of the Alumnae/i Association
of Vassar College.

32

FA L L / W I N T E R 2 0 1 9

It was Christmas 1980 when my grandmother (1930),
mother (1961), and aunt (1963) each told me: "You should
go to Vassar." Today, as the first male President of the
Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College, I'm glad I
listened to them.
Why was their advice so appealing? At 17, it was
clear to me that Vassar offered serious learning with a
minimum of convention. As a young adult, conventions
felt constraining to me. Vassar was founded to be
revolutionary and iconoclastic. Each of these Vassar
graduates in my family, and my great-grandmother
before them (class of 1906), demonstrated this quality.
And those values persist in the college-and in me-
to this day.
The materials and faculty (the "who" and the "what")
were as world-class as they were at the very best liberal
arts colleges. But the "how" and the "why" were different.
At Vassar, we learned to question rather than accept
tradition. We were taught to be suspect of convention-
or at the very least, to challenge assumptions. At Vassar,
our "go to the source" mantra is powerful because of our
reluctance to accept trends rather than truths.
It was conventional in the 1860s for only men to go
to college. Not at Vassar. In 1969, it would have been
conventional to accept Yale's offer of merger. Not at
Vassar. Vassar bucked tradition and evened the lopsided
field of educational opportunities when it was founded.
It did so again when it went coed. And it did so again
when it committed to provide access to all who are
qualified regardless of their family's ability to pay. The
college has stated its commitment to a pluralistic
contract where all are engaged. And in typical Vassar
fashion, any laurels for these accomplishments will be
short lived.
Because, at Vassar, our longstanding tradition is to
ask: "Is it true?" And if the answer is "yes," we follow up,
inevitably, with "So, what's next?"

Sara Moody Allen | '64
Vassar went coed five years after I graduated. So there was no direct personal effect
on me, except for relief that we hadn't
disappeared into Yale. Over time, however,
I came to see that Vassar's going coed was
an important lesson for men; it took a kind
of courage, or whimsy, to choose Vassar as
a young man in the late '60s and early '70s,
and it challenged men's assumptions about
the world. Going to Yale as a woman simply
meant continuing the adjustments familiar
to any young woman in a man's world.
There was little change to the institution
itself, at least in the short term. So I grew
to be proud of Vassar and of its brave men.
Eventually, though, coeducation did
become more personal to me. When
I joined the Alumnae/i Association Board
of Directors four years ago, I was delighted
to discover at the very first meeting of the
Nominating Committee, around an oval
table somewhere in Main, that conversations with male (and female) grads were
like talking with family-Vassar family. We
chatted as if we had common ground,
almost as if they were classmates I hadn't
really known until after graduation. We
knew what we valued (liberal arts, open
conversations, regard for the person no
matter age, gender, sexual orientation,
or occupation). It was a kind of reunion.
Sara Allen, in her role as an AAVC Board
member, has met Vassar alums from the '60s,
'70's, '80s, '90s, '00s, and onward, and says,
"The work has shown me better than anything
else just how vibrant Vassar is today."
Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019

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