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• 1 media/kcwalumniluncheon1960s.jpg 2017-04-14T08:21:16-07:00 Attitudes Towards the Women's Department 20 How behaviors and attitudes towards female students shaped their experiences pre-1962 image_header 2017-05-16T20:22:45-07:00

  When the Women’s Department of Centre College opened its doors in the Fall of 1926 spirits were high.  Students, Faculty, and Staff all felt optimistic about the merger between the Kentucky College for Women and Centre College.  There was little advertising for women’s applications in the first year, but Centre applauded itself for a large freshman and sophomore class, with a total of 44 women enrolled. This lack of advertising but high turnout shows the desire women from Kentucky and other nearby states had to obtain degrees at Centre College. Since 1887 Centre had been receiving unsolicited applications from women students, so it does not come as a surprise that many women applied to be the first classes at the Women’s Department at Centre College.

  From the opening of the Women’s Department students appeared generally excited to work together. The editors of the Cento, Centre College’s student newspaper, reached out to the women in the first publishing of 1926 asking for their involvement in the publication. They expressed that with the women’s “...constructive help the Cento will be bettered.” The women responded quickly and were integrated onto the staff with new positions being added to allow them some leadership roles.

  However, the inclusion of women in the Cento publication was not met with full enthusiasm. In December of 1926, a letter to the editor was published outlining frustrations that male students had with the women who were writing. Their first complaint was that the women were not generating enough material to be a part of the Cento. This complaint was grounded mainly in a lack of articles written by women, but there was no indication if the women’s articles were just under-published or under-written. The second complaint was that the students of the Women’s Department were failing to commit to the promise that they would have 100 percent subscription rates. The men at the time did have this level of subscription rates, as the Cento was not free for students. Women often had subscriptions for one friend in a group and they would share the newspaper amongst themselves. This generated less revenue for the publication and angered the men who felt they should pay for the privilege of writing for the student newspaper.

  These feelings of frustration with the women students did not end after the first year of the merger. In April 1927, right at the end of that first academic year, an article was written praising a Women’s Department student for high achievement in her study abroad program. Although she had had a prestigious opportunity, the article highlighting her is immediately followed by an article detailing how to control a woman. The woman being controlled is analogous to a radio with creative statements such as:

  “If her ways don’t appeal to you TRANSFORMER. / If she has habits that you don’t like BREAKER.”

  This poem illuminates the dichotomy of the students of Centre’s Woman’s Department as both intellectual beings and women of the early 20th century who had to adhere to specific gender roles. The men of the college in those first few years were welcoming, but still held tight to the roles prescribed to women at that time in history.

  In 1934, two years shy of the ten year anniversary of the merger, the tension between male and female students' success was ever present. At the beginning of the fall term the freshman students were required to take a psychological exam. On the front page of the September 21st edition of the Cento, it is noted that men had gotten better scores than the women for the first time in many years. Although they had only beaten the women by a little over one percent, the achievement is marked as a great success. This example shows the clear divide between the male and female students. They were pitted against each other, when the college should be excited that so many students regardless of gender got high mark on the exam.

  This division played out in the social life of 1934 as well.  The Cento staff held a questionnaire where they asked ten members of each class, five men and five women, what was the “most desired characteristic in both men and women” . The questionnaire was presented by the two male assistant editors. They note that all answers will be available in future copies of the Cento. However, two weeks later only the men’s answers to the questionnaire are reported on. The results conclude with nine men voting for personality as the most desired characteristic with character a close second at eight votes. Oddly enough for a college that prides itself on high levels of academics, only one male student voted for intelligence as the number one characteristic. These results, coupled with a lack of results by the women students, show a cultural desire for unintellectual women as partners. That sentiment is not encouraging towards their female classmates, which may have resulted in some students lowering academics on their own priority list to please the men they desire.

  That 1934 questionnaire continued its legacy into the 1940’s with various articles written by Mimi Dayton under her column “Side Glances.” In the November 20, 1942 edition of the Cento, Dayton records the four types of females in the world. They are “The Best Friend,” “The Confiding Type,” “The Hysterical Type,” and “The Hall Fellow.” “The Best Friend” anecdote details a female friend who steals the first female's man while she is away. This image of a backstabbing friend creates negative stereotypes of women as disloyal and manipulative. Painting women in a negative light is a theme that flows through the entirety of Dayton’s piece on the “Females of the Species.” Women are characterized as seductive and overly emotional. If they do not fit any of the categories with those descriptions they are then relegated to the position of a tom boy. This “Hall Fellow” is not a girl you would ever date and is looked down on for being unfeminine. The summation of Dayton’s article is that women are either feminine man-stealers or unfeminine and therefore undesirable. All published opinions of women are male-centric.

  In contrast, Mimi Dayton writes a piece in “Side Glances” detailing the types of men in the world in another issue of the Cento that year. In this article the types of men in the world are “ The Intellectual,” “Joe College,” “The Wolf,” “The Big Brother,” and “The Ideal Type.” From the first type of guy Dayton is clear that even though she is talking about types of men, women are at the center of her argument and once again they are not painted in a positive light. In the description for “The Intellectual” is it noted that he, “...likes a girl who can cook like dear old maw,” suggesting that women are only desirable in traditional female roles, such as a matronly one. The section continues with the information that an intellectual guy, “...prefers her on the dumb side so he can pat her on the head while she does the wide-eyed routine.” In just two lines of her article, Dayton, a woman seeking a college education, has suggested that women should be dumb, or act like they are, in order to attract a mate. Putting women down intellectually in a college student newspaper while building the male students up shows the clear divide between the academic opportunities provided to male and female students.

  In 1942, those description of what men and women can and should be bleed into actual descriptions of real students. Once example of this is the senior highlight section of the Cento. In each addition in 1942 the Cento highlights one male and one female student from the senior class. Compared against each other the differences in what is actually highlighted about each student is astounding. On October 23, 1942 two such seniors were highlighted: Frank Gilliam and Vivian Watts. In Gilliam’s article he is praised for his involvement with his church and his fraternity, noting that, “...he was popular on the men’s campus and at KCW.” The article continues, sharing his athletic and academic achievements as well as his plans to become a lawyer after graduation. Watts, on the other hand, is praised for her beauty. She is stated to have, “a major in Home Economics and a minor in charm.” The article does nothing to highlight any academic achievements she has accomplished during her time at Centre College. Rather it spends a considerable amount of space on her “soft-spoken” nature and the fact that she is, “a gal you’d like to know.” This disparity in the achievements highlighted by the Cento furthers the idea that Centre College did not prioritize the academics of its female students.

  By 1957 the college had been running both a men’s and a women’s department for over 30 years, and the students were merged together in social and some academic life. Tea parties were held on the Lexington Avenue campus with both male and female students in attendance and dances were the highlight of the social calendar. However, things were not always positive. On Halloween night in 1957 men of Centre College raided the female dormitories leaving with over $200 worth of stolen underwear.  The Student-Faculty Congress met to discuss how the damages would be prepared. Raiding the women’s dorms was seen as juvenile, but harmless.

  The men and women were interacting social but also in the 1950s began to interact with each other more in the classroom. One professor from the 1950s, Dr. Heck, shares a story of his advisees trying to take Home Economics. In an oral interview taken in 1983 he talked about how men rarely took the Home Economics courses. However, when “they brought in a young red-headed lady to teach,” the men became more interested in taking these courses. He talks about how the course was, “...good for boys with strong arms and, shall we say, not very active minds.” This sexualization of the female professor calls to attention deep-seeded issues when it comes to acknowledging the achievements of women. It is hard for female students to feel they can be accomplished if the female professors are objectified by their peers.

  When the Fall of 1962 came around the Women’s Department officially closed its doors and shut down the Lexington Avenue Campus. Women were formally moved onto campus into the new quad built to house them. This was seen as a proud moment for the college by the President at the time, President Spragens. However, the women who lost their campus that had been special to them for so many years felt bittersweet about this physical merger. In the long run the physical merger of the two campuses has been good for Centre College financially and academically for both the male and female students.