Faculty & Students
Students
Over the years, a significant amount of progress has been made in the integration of women onto Centre College's campus. Such progress can be witnessed within the graph below containing the male/female student population plotted over time. Shortly after the merger between Centre College and the Kentucky College for Women in 1926, a growth in female enrollment began. In 1926, Centre College was composed of 257 men and KCW was composed of 46 women. In the years leading up to World War II, the population of men on campus began to dwindle due to draft requirements, only to rebound drastically at the war's end as male students were able to return to their education, initial classes being extremely large.
Following WWII and the few years following, both male and female enrollment was increasing steadily with each year. For the first time since WWII (the 1944-45 school year), there were more women than men attending Centre College in 1989-90. Since that period of time, women have remained in the majority in 20 of the last 27 school years, reflecting shifts in public thought and the availability of education for women.
The enrollment progress that has been made on Centre College's campus is illustrated within the interactive graph below:
The graph above tracks men and women in the student body population plotted over time (since 1926). The x-axis includes the years from the merger between KCW and Centre College to present day. A steady increase within the student body is apparent as more men and women attended Centre throughout the years. The significant drop and latter rebound in the male population was due to WWII. The overall progress illustrates Centre College's exceptional job integrating more women onto campus to provide quality education to both sexes.
Faculty
The transition in the integration of the student body also meant that professors from each of the institutions merged as well. Female professors from KCW, although few in numbers, continued to teach on the KCW campus as the students traveled back and forth from Centre's campus to KCW.
In the fall of 1962, the KCW campus was sold and the entirety of Centre College and the new co-education community was located on the current Centre College campus. Since then, all courses were provided in one general area without the need for traveling back and forth between two campuses.
As you can see in the graph below, the progression of female professors at Centre has been on a slow but steady incline over the past 55 years. From roughly 4% of faculty being female in 1930-35, to nearly 40% today, the progress is apparent, but there is still room to grow going forward.