First Female Faculty Member Surprised by “Boyish” Atmosphere
HARTFORD, Conn. – Coincidentally, in 1969, the year that Trinity first admitted female students, Dori Katz became the first woman to be appointed to a tenure-track faculty post. Coming from the University of Iowa, the French professor was, in her words, in “for a big shock.”
Letters were addressed to her as “Mr. Katz,” she was frequently asked to bring her wife to College functions and there was no women’s restroom in Seabury Hall. All of the female staff had to hightail it to Hamlin to use the facilities. In addition, said Katz, the faculty lounge was a “very masculine place,” and “the atmosphere [on campus] was boyish.”
Moreover, she found her male colleagues to be condescending, with one telling her that he knew whenever a female student was menstruating based on the young woman’s attitude in class. Katz was aghast.
Of course, that was 40 years ago and the Trinity College of 2009 hardly resembles the school that Katz encountered in 1969.
She recounted some of her experiences from the late ‘60s and ‘70s during a Common Hour event Thursday, “Coeducation at Trinity: The Early Years, 1969-1984.” Katz, who was also the first woman to be granted tenure, was a panelist along with Judy Dworin. Dworin was one of the first four women to graduate from Trinity as a member of the Class of 1970. She had transferred to Trinity in her senior year from Smith College to take advantage of the dance program here.
The moderator of the Common Hour event was Ronald Spencer ’64, associate academic dean emeritus. Spencer joined the Trinity faculty in 1968, at about the time that then-President Theodore D. Lockwood and the Board of Trustees were mulling over the decision whether to admit women.
“Lockwood was convinced the College ought to move toward coeducation for a number of reasons,” said Spencer, “including the fact that the number of applications were falling and fewer and fewer men wanted to attend a single-sex college.”
And so it was that the trustees voted on January 11, 1969 to enroll women in the fall semester. The first group included about 75 female freshmen and 40 transfer students. The goal was to raise the number of female students to 1,600 over four years – roughly an equivalent number to male students – but, in fact, it took a lot longer than planned for that to happen. 1984 marked the first year in which the first-year class had more female students than males.
Spencer noted that, “as a group, the women in the first five or six years were quite extraordinary.”
Dworin spoke fondly of her first year at Trinity, which began a 35-year relationship with the College. After graduating, she was subsequently hired and founded the College’s dance department and also the Judy Dworin Performance Project in 1989. The Project provides cutting-edge performances that address issues of social justice through the Judy Dworin Performance Ensemble.
Looking back at her first year at Trinity, Dworin said it was akin to “nirvana” because of the openness, infusion of energy and freedom she experienced. Coming from an all-female school, Dworin said she “felt like I came from another country. There was a sense of social urgency and activism.” Indeed, 1969 was a year of great social and political turmoil in the United States, and marked the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Overall, the experiences of Katz and Dworin were very different. Katz, who went on to have a distinguished career at Trinity, recalled that when she arrived women were only part-time or adjunct instructors. In addition, there were no high-ranking female administrators or even chairs of academic departments.
“But,” she noted, “The story had a happy ending. Things changed as more and more women came to campus.”
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