50 Years of Women at Georgetown College
Almost by accident I discovered that this academic year was the 50th anniversary of women enrolling in the College. “Really?” I keep hearing from friends when I tell them. “It’s only been 50 years?” I was researching the growing gender gap in college graduation rates—nationally, about two women graduate from a college or university for every man—and immediately wanted to learn more about my alma mater’s progenitors.
As a Georgetown student, I saw women thriving all around me—from class participation to leadership positions, volunteer efforts, and academic awards. Of course, there are still glass ceilings to break. The first all-female ticket won the GUSA student election only when I was a sophomore, and women are still outnumbered in math and science (though ahead in biology). At the faculty level, male tenured professors still outnumbered their female counterparts. But the numbers are clear: Georgetown’s undergraduate campus is 56 percent female and 44 percent male. In the last 10 years, 60 percent of the College’s valedictorians have been female (three named Jennifer). It’s important to commemorate 50 years of women’s accomplishments in context.
The first female students at Georgetown were two women who, for reasons now lost to the fog of history, managed to enter the medical school in 1880 but never graduated. In 1903, under the direction of the Sisters of Saint Francis, the nursing school opened to educate women for work as nurses alongside the all-male medical staff. (In a flipped win for gender inclusivity, this is also the 50th anniversary of the university removing its ban on male nursing applicants.) Most of these early nursing students were local Sisters of the Visitation, whose school shares a property line with the university. The women were conferred diplomas, not full degrees.
At the beginning of World War II, facing a potential loss in tuition revenue as men were drafted, Georgetown began admitting women to its Graduate School and School of Foreign Service, from which later emerged the School of Business Administration (now Georgetown McDonough) and the School of Language and Linguistics (now absorbed into the College). Shortly after the war, the medical and dental schools began enrolling women, and in 1951 Georgetown Law admitted its first female students.
By the early 1950s, every Georgetown school was open to women except for the College.
Tradition played a role in both the holdout and the ultimate decision to adapt to coeducation. As incoming President Robert J. Henle, S.J., noted in the summer of 1969, the Society of Jesus had historically aimed to teach and prepare society’s future leaders, and as women were taking on new roles, he argued, there was a moral obligation to educate them as well. Dean of Admissions Charlie Deacon credits the school’s decision to fully go co-ed primarily to the waves of change happening in the country. In the late 1960s, more and more universities (read: rivals for male applicants) announced their coeducation. In August 1968 the College announced that it would accept 50 women into the following year’s freshman class and received 10 times as many applications as there were spaces available. When Georgetown College announced its decision to admit women, the number of male applicants increased as well. For more on the history of university coeducation nationally, Keep the Damned Women Out by Nancy Weiss Malkiel is a must-read.
By the mid-1970s, fewer than 10 years after they were even allowed to enroll as students in the College, women outnumbered men, both in the College and on the undergraduate campus overall. The female-to-male student ratio hovered close to 50:50 through 1990, when the admissions office stopped reporting gender in its annual student-profile report. Today, at Georgetown and universities around the country, women outnumber men.
The 1969–1970 academic year changed the face of Georgetown because for the first time women were truly part of daily campus life. Slowly, women in the College were allowed to participate in co-curricular activities. Some aspects of student life were slow to adapt and accommodate them, from the intangible, like a sense of belonging, to the practical, like dress codes. It is said that, for the first couple of years, women weren’t permitted to wear pants or sit on the front lawn.
“Women’s dominance on college campuses is possibly the strangest and most profound change of the century,” writes author Hanna Rosin. I’m inclined to agree. Women helped change Georgetown significantly, and for the better. Yet when the first female students talk about what drew them to George- town, the answers seem familiar: the university’s academic reputation, its location in the nation’s capital, including proximity to political and cultural events, and its Jesuit identity.
These pioneering women have exceptional stories to tell. They witnessed and contributed to the transformation that remade the university into an elite, nationally recognized institution.
But changes in the demographics of Georgetown’s student body are unfinished. In addition to enriching Georgetown’s archives, women’s testimonies can help the university learn how to ensure that all students feel included and thrive. As minorities become the new majority at schools across the country, it may be useful to look at parallel transitions to understand how to best serve today’s marginalized student populations.
Adrianna Smith (C’15) is a Washington writer. Her website is makar-studio.com.
Editor's note: Bill Cessato, Lynn Conway, HelenMarie Dolton (N'53), and Ann Galloway contributed to the nursing history section of this story. Read more: nhs.georgetown.edu/news-story/nursing-history.
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