It may be hard for today’s undergraduates at elite colleges and universities to imagine that many of their institutions -- as recently as the 1960s and 1970s -- would not admit female students. These days when coeducation is in the news, it is typically a women’s college deciding to admit men. But the reality is that coeducation at elite institutions that were once all male did not happen overnight -- and didn’t happen without considerable backlash from alumni and others. Nancy Weiss Malkiel tells the story in “Keep the Damned Women Out”: The Struggle for Coeducation (Princeton University Press). Malkiel is professor emeritus of history at Princeton and served there as dean of the college, overseeing the undergraduate academic program, for 24 years.

September 30, 2016 ・ From Inside Higher Ed