Two anniversaries end the Bicentennial

Two anniversaries end the Bicentennial

The College's year of anniversaries concluded last fall with activities noting twenty-five years of coeducation and 150 years of engineering. Here are brief reports on some of what went on:

Coeducation...

Minerva's Daughters
Through dance, narrated movement, dialogue, and song, a small troupe of actors, dancers, musicians, singers, and narrators brought to life the many women of Union's first 175 years-Mrs. Perkins, Eliphalet Nott's mother, housekeepers, cooks, students' sweethearts, secretaries, and faculty wives.

Written by Gail George, the performance-called Minerva's Daughters: A Work in Progress - eloquently began the celebration of coeducation at the College.

A time of relevance
"What were you doing in 1969?" was the question posed by Barbara Burek '75 at a panel discussion called "The Transition to Coeducation." Her list of events that surrounded the decision to admit women as fulltime students-the Vietnam War, the Sexual Revolution, protests-was referred to as a "time of relevance."

Professor of Political Science Byron Nichols, who voted on coeducation at his first faculty meeting, spoke of the issues surrounding the decision on coeducation, such as women "adding to the aesthetics of the campus." He noted that no sports program was put in place for women, and it was widely believed that women would not be interested in studying science and engineering.

In the classroom, students were addressed by their last names, which many women quickly took a disliking to. "For a young faculty member learning how to teach, it was a hell of time," Nichols said.

Misconceptions
Kay Stout Van Woert '72, the first woman accepted at Union, described those early days as a "rude awakening.

"There was very much an institutional misconception," she said. On one of her first visits to campus, to have her photograph taken for the magazine, she says she was treated very much like an object.

"The administration was just not prepared for women," she said, commenting on the hiring of a dean of women who "to teach and protect the morals of female students."

Eventually, sports
Five years after women were admitted, a sports program appeared. Varsity programs in field hockey, volleyball, tennis, basketball, lacrosse, and softball got started in 1975. (Of the College's twenty-two varsity sports programs today, eleven are for men, eleven are for women.) During Homecoming weekend, women athletes were honored at a reception and at halftime of the football game.

Then and now
Three students and their alumni fathers gathered during Parents Weekend to discuss then and now.

Chris Gelston '96 saw one major difference between what he experiences and what his father, Alexander Gelston '68, experienced-"There are girls now," the younger Gelston said. "They don't have to bus them in like they did when my dad was here."

Also on hand to share experiences were Julie Newton '96 and her father, James '71, and Diane Lieb '97 and her father, James '72.

The changing life cycle
The keynote speaker of the two-weekend celebration was Mary Catherine Bateson, the Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University and the daughter of Margaret Mead.

Speaking to a large crowd of faculty, staff, parents, students, and community members, she talked about how people-and especially women-adapt to changes in the life cycle and the way they tell their own life stories. Women, she said, were the "pioneers in the new understanding of the life cycle."

...and engineering

The celebration of 150 years of engineering also combined looks at the past and the future.

In the former category, former Dean of Engineering Ed Craig '48 regaled a luncheon audience with tales from his book, A History of Engineering at Union College-1845-1995.

In the latter category, panelists discussed the College's new engineering curriculum, now under development, and where engineering might be in the twenty-first century.

Raymond List '66, former president of ICF Kaiser Engineers, Inc., and the chairman and co-founder of American Venture Investments, noted:

• Technology development is so rapid that students must understand that they will relearn many times during their careers or end up technologically obsolete; 
• An important part of engineering is cost control, and students not prepared to deal with this issue might want to rethink their career goals; 
• If engineers are to become leaders in society, they must have communications and business skills to accompany their technical knowledge;
• "Expect, and embrace, change."

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