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Looking Back
Interviews with four women who entered Yale College in the fall of 1969
September/October 2009
Frances Beinecke '71, '74MFS
Frances
Beinecke '71, '74MFS, grew up in New Jersey and went to private school; she
started college at Penn, but she comes from an old Yale family and transferring
seemed natural. She is executive director of the Natural Resources Defense
Council and has served on the Yale Corporation.
“I
had a great time. It was a very rich experience. I remember just sitting for
hours in the dining hall, where people would be sweeping in and out and you
really felt part of a community. Most of the people I hung around with were the
boys—because there were so many of them.
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“Yale is completely different from what it was in the first half of the 20th century.”
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“Coeducation
was part of a series of decisions that Brewster and the Corporation [Yale’s
governing body] were making to modernize the university. The whole nation was
moving in that direction, and if Yale hadn’t, it would have been left seriously
behind. Yale now is a completely different place from what it was in the first
half of the twentieth century. People almost don’t recognize it, but I think
they are excited by the energy. Yale has done an amazing job of continuing to
look ahead: what do you need to do to succeed in the world that you’re going to
be part of? It’s not that there weren’t always talents in these sectors. But
society wasn’t ready for more diverse leadership.”
Lawrie Mifflin '73
Lawrie Mifflin '73, who attended public high school in Pennsylvania, chose Yale partly for “the pioneering adventure aspect” of being in the first coed class. She is a senior editor at the New York Times.
“The
one thing that Yale clearly had not prepared for was women who wanted to play
competitive intercollegiate sports. When I went to ask where I could sign up
for the field hockey team, I was met with blank stares and open mouths.
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“I never thought, I must do this to strike a blow for women.”
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“I
never thought, I must do this to strike a blow for women. I just thought, Damn
it, I’m not going to let them stop me. Another girl, Jane Curtis ['73], and I
asked the athletic department to give us a coach and a field for the following
season [fall of 1970], and they did. Our coach was the mother of a Yale student
from the New Haven area. We organized almost everything for the first season
ourselves, including writing to nearby colleges to ask them to play us. We
played that season in t-shirts and cutoff jeans. My senior year was a great
triumph. We had proper coaching and proper equipment and proper uniforms. We
were the first varsity women’s sport at Yale.”
Vera Wells '71
Vera
Wells '71 was raised in Pittsburgh and went to public schools. She entered
Howard University but then married, moved to New Haven, and transferred to
Yale. She has worked in international development and as an NBC executive.
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“I didn’t see any black women who were professors.”
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“At
Yale, the guys tripped over themselves to accommodate women: 'What is the
female opinion on this? Are you comfortable with this?' But I realized what was
missing was that I didn’t see any black women who were professors. So, even
though I didn’t consider myself an activist, another student and I proposed a
college seminar on black women. They recruited Sylvia Ardyn Boone from Hunter
College. She taught two sections, and the classes were oversubscribed. It was
right at the beginning of Afro-American Studies.
“It
was my mother’s aim in life that I get an education. The only occupation I
thought of for women at that time was being a public-school teacher, or maybe a
librarian. Yale opened up a whole new framework of possibilities for what I
might be able to do with my life.”
Diane “Cookie” Polan '73, '80JD
Diane
“Cookie” Polan '73, '80JD, grew up in suburban New Jersey and
attended public schools; she had a cousin who'd gone to Yale. She has a law
practice in New Haven specializing in criminal defense.
“I
think Yale felt it was at a competitive disadvantage. It wasn’t that they
wanted to educate women, but that they felt they were losing male students to
coed schools. I remember Kingman Brewster saying that they were still going to
produce 'a thousand male leaders' every year. As a woman, I felt like an
add-on.
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“You definitely felt that it wasn’t about you and your education.”
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“It’s
hard to be the people who are the pioneers. That was true for the black
students too. I don’t think Yale set things up intentionally to make it
miserable for these young women. But you definitely felt that it wasn’t about
you and your education. Becoming a part of the feminist movement when I was
barely 19—that was definitely a consequence of being in that class.
“If
I had it to do over again, I probably would have gone to Berkeley. But I am
happy with how my life in New Haven has turned out. The experience was what
made me think I could be a political activist and a lawyer—that this was
actually a way to work for social change.”  |
