Female Yale: 'Plainly Attractive'

"The only reason Yale would ever consider taking women is that private education has an obligation to educate all young people."--a Yale administrator.

The monosexuality of life amidst the monuments of New Haven during the week may be an overemphasis, yet an Eli's social life is geared for the weekend, much in the same manner as that of a girl at an isolated women's college. For on weekends the campus is indundated with females from Vassar, Connecticut, Smith, and other foreign territories.

The reasons, as one official noted, is that, "the supply of females here at the University is naturally low." There are about 500 women enrolled in the various graduate schools (including the totally female School of Nursing). A few of these are undergraduates, but they are emphatically not enrolled in Yale College. It is not unusual, therefore, to see in lectures these feminine students and a variety of wives. Consequently the attendance of a bus load of marooned Smithies in Yale classes a few years ago, unusual, was not 'precedent shattering' as one national magazine stated.

Although one professor noted, "The fellows seem to be intrigued with the idea" of women in the classroom, the impression of most observers is that the students are more apathetic than intrigued. The case was admittedly slightly different two years ago when their reaction was one of hostility to the suggestion of Arthur Howe, Jr., Dean of Admissions, that the College consider accepting women. The protests against co-education were so vociferous that President A. Whitney Griswold felt obliged to state that "there is not the remotest possibility of its taking place at Yale," in the near future.

As the Yalie Daily humbly proclaimed, "In the changing of an institution's traditions, where is the line between what is so extreme that by its execution the institution no longer exists? In the case of Yale, the line is attired in plaid Bermuda shorts and poodle hair-cuts." Thus traditional conservatism responded to the 'dangers' of co-education!

The issue has disappeared for the present. Henry Chauncy in the office of the Dean of Yale College summed up the current view by declaring co-education at Yale is not now feasible. An undergraduate education involves more than just providing classes and dormitories, he pointed out, but also health services, athletic facilities, and extra-curricular activities. Whereas the College does have two new colleges which could serve as dormitories for women students, it could not provide the other elements in an undergraduate education. "It is in the nature of women to have more problems than men," another administrator remarked.

The undeniable problems in the maintenance of a purely male community, however, worry many educators. Foremost is the 'unnatural' effect of coming into contact with women on weekends only. An artificial attitude towards dates and sex results when it becomes a special event to meet them; and although Albertus Magnus is in New Haven and Connecticut College for Women not too distant, weeknight dating is infrequent. There is consequently a compensatory amount of drinking.

Just as serious is the effect--academically--of the 'disintegration' of the Yale community on weekends. "A weekend away from New Haven, with a girl's college or one of its denizens as the magnet in the case, is now a regular occurrence.... The causes of this development are numerous and complicated, and the results are almost catastrophic, in my opinion, for the continued good health of undergraduate education at Yale," Thomas C. Mendenhall, Master of Berkeley College and Smith's president-elect, wrote in 1953. "When the student's original academic obligation and his self-imposed extra-curricular demands are added to the mixture, the effects of this weekending are far reaching and, I think, disastrous," he added.

Compounding the tendency to flee to greener pastures from New Haven is the close proximity of New York--an hour and a half away--and several women's colleges: Smith only two hours distant, and Wellesley but three. The casualness of Elis towards traveling is exemplified by three who journeyed to Wellesley in order to take blind dates to a movie. It is the avowed purpose of President Griswold to cut down on this roaming by increasing academic work loads.

Some, of course, find the system nearly perfect without traveling. These are the girls in the graduate schools who almost unanimously said that they enjoy being in the heart of a great male university. The lone exception explained, "I have a finance at Harvard."

As one dean commented, "None of our girls are pining away." They date both graduate and undergraduate students, and the only problem, Judy Fiorello of Vassar remarked, "is having enough time to go out with a boy a second time." Another girl, a lithe brunette, computed that she had an average of five different dates a week. Few girls participate in Yale extra-curricular activities. "Most of our spare time is taken up in dates," a pretty blonde noted.

It has not been discovered at the Graduate School that the women suffer academically for the time spent on other pursuits. "Their previous training is as good as the men get," George P. Springer, Dean of Admissions, said. An officer of the School of Music felt that some of their undergraduate girls experience 'strain' in the effort to keep up. Most of the students seemed to feel that the toughest part of getting a Yale degree was gaining admittance.

The number of women undergraduates at Yale is small; nine in the Master of Arts in Teaching program and a few in the School of Music. The girls in the MAT received a great deal of publicity last spring when it was announced that selected students from Smith and Vassar would spend their senior year at Yale. They will receive a B.A. from their own college but upon completion of a second year at Yale will obtain an MAT degree.

Entering the program this fall were five co-eds from Vassar, three from Smith, and one from Swarthmore, plus two males from Yale. Almost all were in the fields of English or History. They claim that Yale is much more relaxed than their own colleges but find that the work is oriented, especially in the case of the girls from Vassar, much more towards the original source material than to a critical bibliography.

For girls from Vassar the transition involved other adjustments. The big name lecturer was decidedly new, and it took some time for one girl to get over the shock of Cleanth Brooks asking her in a soft southern drawl, "Are you happy at Yale?"

All the females in the University dress carefully, if casually. One observer described them as "plainly attractive although not striking" and that seemed a pretty fair generalization.

The University attitude towards its female member is dominated by unconcern. Few records are kept about them. It was only this year that women were provided with an adequate dorm, whose 230 rooms are already nearly full. No facilities are provided for married students.

The future status of women at Yale in the face of this disinterest is indefinite. They are accepted in every branch of the University except the undergraduate College and the School of Forestry. This situation is unlikely to change. The size of Yale is growing, however, and several officials expect that the proportion of women will decrease with the increased enrollment. The number of females in the Graduate School increased only slightly this year although the total enrollment jumped by 180.

One thing is certain. There will be fewer co-eds without a degree in two years. All of the professional schools will at that time have converted to strictly graduate schools, while in the MAT program "undergraduates will be comparatively few," Mendenhall said.

The future is bleak for any Eli undergraduate who expects a day when his eight o'clock class is populated with "Bermuda shorts and poodle hair-cuts," but then, few of our Southern brethren give a damn.Yale Daily News