In its comparisons of other coordinated university systems, particularly the Douglass-Rutgers, Barnard-Columbia, and Sophie Newcomb-Tulane co-ordinations, the Joint Committee unearthed that the many effective systems were the ones that offered few limitations on cross-registration and incorporated the 2 universities since closely as you possibly can. Schools that attempted to keep specific identities and split intercourse classrooms fostered dissatisfaction one of the pupils and jealousies amongst the two characteristics. This an element of the research concluded that should a merger that is vassar-Yale, the main focus should always be on assisting simple relationship involving the two schools and assimilating the particular divisions whenever you can without threatening Vassar’s autonomy. Joseph Lieberman, the advisor that is legal the research and from now on a Senator from Connecticut, noted that the plans for department relationship will have to be because certain as you are able to entering any merger to allow the change to go efficiently.
The part that is second of research desired to give you the groundwork for anyone plans. Both schools come up with data on admissions data, tuition and space and board costs, faculty pay scales, advantages, and then leave policies, teaching lots, tenure policies, requirements for advertising and visit, graduation needs, course and lab usage, etc. Vassar computed the worth of their present facilities as well as the anticipated costs of creating a full campus in brand new Haven. The proposed plant in brand new Haven would consist of a library, classrooms, dorms, and a student center all for Vassar use within addition to your current brand new Haven campus. The proposed site because of this complex that is new on Prospect Street, in which the Culinary Institute of America was previously found before it relocated to its current house in Hyde Park, NY. As the site, in a single Vassar agent’s evaluation, had been “more appealing than anticipated,” a factory nearby marred the horizon and a planned highway underneath or overpass threatened to cut the location removed from the primary Yale campus. Mini-bus solution might have been necessary to reach the Yale Sterling Library, since it had been a 25 minute walk from Prospect Street. Nevertheless, the data-based region of the research did not address desirability, but rather displayed facts and sought to offer a blueprint for producing a distinct location for Vassar in brand new Haven, split from Yale, if the move happen.
The third an element of the research proved probably the most controversial. Vassar faculty, already cautious with the scholarly research and stressed concerning the discrepancy in capital between your Yale-Vassar research and also the Committee on New Dimensions, felt that the educational areas of the move had been underrepresented in the 1st stages of this research. Increasing numbers of people started to start to see the Vassar-Yale merger a concern of academic philosophy in place of just concerns that are logistical. Within the springtime of ’67, in between administering and grading exams for the conclusion of the institution 12 months, two representatives of each and every Vassar Department came across with two representatives through the corresponding Yale Department for 2 times to talk about the methods when the two traits would communicate at on a campus that is vassar-Yale. In those two times, talks ranged from possible graduate training at Yale by Vassar teachers, evaluations needless to say listings and structures, pedagogical obligations and philosophy, as well as class facilities. Both edges then reported the total results of the conference to your study. Lots of the reports talked of shared respect and compromises, just a few included caustic remarks that are personal one other college’s division together with to be modified before last book regarding the study. The conferences solidified the Vassar faculty’s opposition towards the move, and many concluded within their reports that the move wouldn’t be into the desires of the division.
The faculty opposition reflected when you look at the 3rd the main research included gas towards the dissent that is already aggressive the alumnae. All the ladies in the Alumnae Association thought Vassar ought to remain in Poughkeepsie and explore its possibilities at its historic house. Letters from mad alumnae contrasted the “squalor” of the latest Haven to your tranquility that is”pastoral of Vassar’s Poughkeepsie location. Other only lads people pointed from what they regarded as inadequate focus on undergraduates at Yale and feared that a Vassar in brand new Haven would no longer carry on its tradition of undergraduate excellence. Nevertheless other people pointed to your Radcliffe-Harvard merger as evidence that no “royal wedding” will allow autonomy for Vassar, despite good luck motives. In 1967, an article by a Vassar alumnae entitled “How Dare They Do It” appeared in Time magazine october. This article referenced rumors of a conspiracy between your two Presidents and stated Vassar have been Yale’s 2nd option for a “dancing partner” after Connecticut university turned it straight down. President Brewster of Yale had written a letter that is private enough time editors doubting the rumors, and both the Vassar and Yale pupil newspapers responded with scathing reviews associated with the article within their editorial columns. Nonetheless, this article reflected the attitudes of a tremendously vocal part of this Vassar alumnae populace who have been so aggravated in the chance of a merger it move to New Haven that they threatened to pull their support, financial and otherwise, from the school should.
By the end of October, the trustees, that would finally decide in the Vassar-Yale proposal, had unofficially refused the offer. Proposals had been designed for cooperation lacking moving, but Yale desired Vassar as the resident female university or otherwise not after all. On November 20, 1967, the Vassar Trustees rejected the Vassar-Yale plan and declared that alternatively that Vassar research the integration of males by itself campus, whether in a graduate or undergraduate institution built nearby for that function or in coeducation from the current campus. Almost all of the work for the Vassar-Yale research, particularly components two and three, had been inapplicable to your choices dealing with Vassar after it chosen to stay in Poughkeepsie. Nevertheless, the info about other college that is female experiences with co-operative systems plus the wider academic concerns raised by the Vassar-Yale study both highly affected the faculty’s decisions within the next 2 yrs. Both the option to make usage of coeducation from the university as opposed to producing a men that are cooperative university as well as the Comprehensive Arrange that radically changed Vassar’s curriculum stemmed straight from talks about Vassar’s feasible invest brand new Haven. The Vassar-Yale research, though beaten, forced the college to reevaluate its traditions and reform to mirror this new expectations of liberal arts universities within the years in the future.
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Sources
“Coeducation File” assembled by Clyde Griffen, personal assortment of Elizabeth Daniels
Chesler, Ellen, Steven Weisman, and Michael Winger. “Vassar and Yale: the complete Sad Story, This new Journal, vol. 1, no. 12 (April 28, 1968): 1-9, 16.
Daniels, Elizabeth and Griffen, Clyde. Comprehensive Steam Ahead in Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie: Vassar University, 2000.
Foote, Barbara A. “A Royal Marriage,” The Alumnae/I Quarterly, vol. 101, issue 1 (wintertime 2004).