How the Quad Went Coed -- in UK and US

choi

Leonore, Tiefer, How the Quad Went Coed; 'What is this nonsense about admitting women to Princeton? A good old-fashioned whore-house would be considerably more efficient.' Wall Street Journal, Nov 21, 2016.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-quad-went-coed-1479680187
(book review on Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Keep the Damned Women Out; The struggle for coeducation. Princeton University Press, 2016)

Quote:

"Fifty years ago, same-sex schooling in higher education had ended for many public colleges and universities in the United States and Britain, but it remained the norm at most elite [read: private] universities in the Northeast—the Ivy League schools of Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth and Harvard and comparable private women colleges such as Vassar, Smith and Wellesley. Cambridge and Oxford, too, had resisted coeducation.  How and why, between 1969 and 1974, these prestigious institutions decided to go coed—or not—is the fascinating story Ms. Malkiel tells.

"The idea of admitting women, for many alumni, seemed absurd. The punchy title of Ms Malkiel's book, 'Keep the Damned Women Out,' comes from a letter written by a Dartmouth graduate as his alma mater debated whether or not to allow female students: 'For God's sake, for Dartmouth's sake, and for everyone's sake, keep the damned women out.'

"The deeply self-serving conviction that educating leaders required elite schools to choose primarily white Protestant male students remained unquestioned until the 1960s, when widespread quotas for the admission of Jews and blacks began to fall.

"the story here is ultimately that of a rapid chain reaction that was over in half a decade.

"The author was a Princeton history professor for more than 40 years. * * * She describes how various alternative arrangements were considered (such as moving Vassar to New Haven and Sarah Lawrence to Princeton!) and discarded.

"At each school, the administration worked to develop plans to satisfy the interests of students, faculty and [deep-pocketed] alumni.

"The evident lack of concern for women helped Smith and Wellesley resist the siren song of coeducation, as did feminism.

Note:
(a) "Fifty years ago, same-sex schooling in higher education had ended for many public colleges and universities in the United States and Britain."
(i) Google same-sex school, you will get mostly same-sex marriage. The apter term in use is single-sex school.
(ii) mixed-sex education
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-sex_education#United_States

(b) About "the Quad" in the title of the book review.

quadrangle (architecture)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrangle_(architecture)
(or colloquially, a quad; The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other buildings such as palaces)

(c) "private women colleges such as Vassar, Smith and Wellesley [the last opened in 1875]"
(i) Vassar college
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassar_College
(a private, liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York; "Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the first degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. It became coeducational in 1969")
(ii) Smith College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_College
(a private, independent women's liberal arts college with coed graduate and certificate programs; with a bequest of Sophia Smith, opened in 1875)