Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019 - 42

REFLECTIONS ON COEDUCATION

Bitsie Clark | '53

THE MINUTE I BECAME AWARE
THAT YALE AND OTHER MEN'S
COLLEGES WERE BECOMING
COEDUCATIONAL, I FEARED
FOR VASSAR'S FUTURE.

Philip N. Jefferson | '83
What coeducation at Vassar has meant
to me can be summarized in one word:
opportunity. My Vassar education provided
me with a flexible yet strong foundation
upon which I could build my life. I do not
measure the quality of that education in
levels of attainment of money, power, or
status. Rather, for me, its true value lies
in how it informs my understanding of
the joys, challenges, and transitions that
I have encountered since graduation. The
opportunity to study at Vassar was in fact
an invitation to discernment that has
made all the difference.
Philip N. Jefferson is Vice President for
Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty and
Paul B. Freeland Professor of Economics
at Davidson College.

42

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

I am a member of the class of 1953, and
from 1960 on, I was a member of the Vassar
Club of New Haven. I ran the club's Prospective Students Program for nearly four
decades, from 1965 to 2002. So I have seen
firsthand Vassar's move into coeducation as
a student, alum, and volunteer.
The minute I became aware that Yale
and other men's colleges were becoming
coeducational, I feared for Vassar's future.
All of the other Seven Sisters colleges were
very near men's colleges. We really weren't;
our closest such school was West Point.
I was therefore delighted and proud when
Vassar decided to become coeducational in
its own right. I was especially eager to
promote that new chapter through my work
with prospective students. Initially,
it was difficult to find male students or
graduates who might speak with applicants.
In the late 1970s, however, a Vassar
alumnus who was a Lutheran minister in the

nearby town of Wallingford, Connecticut,
volunteered. I asked him to drive several
Choate School students to our club's party
for prospective students.
I asked him to talk with them about what
it was like to attend a college traditionally
for women. "When I toured the dormitories,
I was stunned by the fact that all of the
bathroom stalls had doors on them," he
exclaimed. "I said to myself, 'This is a place
that really values your privacy!'" As the
years went on, and we had more male
graduates, it became much easier to recruit
male students.
Even in the early days, I was so happy
to see Vassar embrace change, rather than
fight against the current.
Bitsie Thompson Clark was told by her high
school headmistress that Vassar was the
"pipest of pipe dreams," but she says, "I had
a great experience at Vassar, and a great
experience serving Vassar in the New Haven
Vassar Club, the class of '53, and the Board
of the Alumnae/i Association."
Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019

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