While the impact of women on Kenyon was perhaps most keenly felt in 1969, when female students were first admitted to the Coordinate College for Women, they have played a fundamental role in Kenyon's trajectory from the outset.
The Hill has changed in innumerable ways over the past 50 years. This year, the College will highlight and celebrate women of Kenyon and honor half a century of coeducation. Join us on September 14, for the official kickoff of Women at Kenyon: Celebrating Fifty Years of Coeducation.
Explore the past 195-plus years of Kenyon’s history and women’s impact below. Events in italics have been included to provide context.
On Dec. 29, Kenyon College is officially incorporated by action of the Ohio state legislature.
On Sept. 9, Kenyon holds its first Commencement ceremony.
The main, or upper, room of Rosse Hall, the chapel named for Lady Jane King Parsons, the College’s most generous original donor, is first used for regular Sunday worship.
On March 15, the “Town of Gambier” is incorporated by an act of the Ohio legislature.
The first issue of the Kenyon Collegian appears.
On June 30, the cornerstone is laid for Ascension Hall, designed by William Tinsley and paid for with gifts from New York City’s Church of the Ascension in honor of the congregation’s former rector, Bishop Gregory Thurston Bedell, and his wife, Julia Strong Bedell.
On Friday, April 12, the Civil War begins.
Kokosing House, designed by William Tinsley and constructed by William Fish for Julia Strong Bedell and Gregory Thurston Bedell, is first occupied. In December, Sophia Ingraham Chase, wife of Kenyon founder Philander Chase, dies in Illinois at the age of eighty-two.
Cornerstone is laid for the Church of the Holy Spirit, designed by Gordon Lloyd of Detroit and — again — paid for with gifts from New York City’s Church of the Ascension in honor of the congregation’s former rector, Bishop Gregory Thurston Bedell, and his wife, Julia Strong Bedell.
In June, Kenyon’s first recorded dance, the “Senior Promenade,” takes place in the Philomathesian and Nu Pi Kappa rooms of Ascension Hall.
The Harcourt Place Seminary for Young Ladies and Girls opens in Gambier, with Lucy Caroline Andrews, an alumna of the University of Michigan and a former member of the faculty at Wellesley College, as headmistress.
Harriet Lathrop Merrow, a Wellesley alumna who will go on to become the first woman professor of botany at the University of Rhode Island, joins the faculty of the Harcourt Place Seminary, where she will serve for three years as an instructor in natural sciences before going on to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Emma Wright joins the Kenyon administration as College librarian and serves until 1896.
Ellen Douglas Smith Devol, an Ohio University alumna and wife of Kenyon administrator and faculty member Russell Sedwick Devol, is named the College’s librarian, a post she holds for twenty-six years.
Philena Taylor, daughter of an Episcopal bishop and sister of a Kenyon alumnus, becomes the first woman to serve as secretary to the College’s president, then William Foster Peirce. She also serves as the College’s assistant treasurer and then treasurer until Peirce’s retirement in 1937.
Ellen Douglas Smith Devol retires as Kenyon’s librarian at the close of the 1921-22 academic year.
Eleanor Maude Hickin, an alumna of the University of Michigan, assumes the duties of Kenyon’s librarian. She is assisted by Marie Louise Boswell, a graduate of Wellesley College.
Festivities on June 14-17 celebrate Kenyon’s centennial, with guests including Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon, Fourth Baron Kenyon; James Norris Gamble of the Class of 1854, inventor of Ivory soap and oldest living alumnus; and Florence Kling Harding, who accepts an honorary degree on behalf of her recently deceased husband, U. S. President Warren Gamaliel Harding.
On Oct. 29 the stock market collapses, ushering in the Great Depression.
At the end of the 1935-36 academic year, the Harcourt Place School, also known as the Harcourt Place Seminary, closes for the last time, a victim of the Great Depression.
On Dec. 8, the United States declares war on Japan.
In January, Eleanor Maude Hickin retires from Kenyon after twenty-three years as the College librarian. She is succeeded by Wyman W. Parker, newly returned from World War II service as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.
The June 19 edition of the Collegian leads with the headline, “Announce Kenyon to Go Co-ed in Fall.” Other stories in the humor issue deal with a biology professor disproving Darwin’s theory of evolution, the College’s addition of a Department of Piscatology, and subversive activities on the part of the editors of a certain campus periodical.
Florence Dyke Lewis Rauh, of Elyria, Ohio, donates $323,000 to Kenyon in memory of her late husband, David Lewis. The first $50,000 is allocated to a scholarship fund, while the remainder of the gift is designated for construction of a freshman residence hall.
Philena H. Taylor, secretary and assistant treasurer, retires from Kenyon after more than forty years of service to the College.
On Feb. 26, the Kenyon Singers and the Glee Club of Western College for Women offer a joint concert in Rosse Hall.
On Feb. 27, the Kenyon board approves (in principle) the expansion of the student body and the creation of the Coordinate College for Women.
Kenyon announces its Program for Expansion, which entails an increased enrollment of men and, for the first time, the admission of women.
Philena H. Taylor dies at the age of ninety.
On October 15, Kenyon breaks ground for construction of the commons and residence halls of the Coordinate College for Women and a new building for the Department of Biology.
On Nov. 2, Kenyon hosts the first gathering of its new Parents Advisory Council (PAC), the governing body of its Parents Association. PAC members, who are appointed by the president, represent all four classes currently on campus.
On Dec. 12, Doris Bean Crozier, assistant to the president at Chatham College, is announced as the dean of the Coordinate College for Women.
On April 15, William Goff Caples is formally inaugurated, in Wertheimer Fieldhouse, as the fifteenth president of Kenyon.
During the summer, Harlene Marley, a new assistant professor of drama and the second woman to be hired into a tenure-track position at Kenyon, arrives on campus.
On Sept. 8, Kenyon marks the official opening of the Coordinate College for Women and the unofficial end of single-sex education on the Hill.
On May 4, members of the Ohio National Guard shoot and kill four students at Kent State University.
On May 30, Kenyon dedicates Virginia Hyatt McBride Residence and Jessica Roesler Gund Commons on the Coordinate College campus, honoring the wives of two longtime trustees. The two yet-to-be-completed residence halls will also be named for the wives of College trustees and benefactors, Jean Dunbar Caples and Madeline Almy Mather.
Kenyon’s Lambda Chapter of Sigma Pi fraternity disaffiliates from its national organization and becomes a local group known as the Peeps (its former nickname), and admits women as members.
With the May 6 issue of the Collegian, Liesel Friedrich and Denise Largent, both of the Class of 1973, become the first women editors of the newspaper.
On May 30, Kenyon awards degrees to its first three female graduates, Belinda Bremner, Judith Hobbs Goodhand and Patricia Sellew (the first woman elected to the Beta of Ohio Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa). All three came to the College as transfer students in 1969.
On February 19, the Kenyon board votes that the College will become a coeducational institution on July 1, 1972. Thus the short life of the Coordinate College for Women comes to an end.
Flora Katz ’72 becomes the first Kenyon woman to be awarded a Watson Fellowship for travel and study abroad.
Leonie Silverman (now Deutsch) ’73 is announced as the first woman editor of Reveille, Kenyon’s yearbook.
On May 28, Kenyon awards degrees to the second group of women, eighteen strong: Susan Ceaser, Kathryn Eisenberg, Carole Garbuny, Roberta Hilt, Flora Katz, Diane Markham, Susan McGannon, Joyce Ott, Ellen-Jane Pader, Nancy Peek, Kathleen Seaton, Sara Sedgwick, Ann Sellew, Paula Siegel, Carolyn Smith, Kaj Wilson, Ann Worthington, and Ouida Young.
On June 3, the Kenyon board votes to approve an experiment in coeducational housing proposed by an ad hoc committee on the subject. The first residences to have both female and male occupants are Farr Hall (suite by suite), Caples Residence (floor by floor), and the Bexley and New apartments (apartment by apartment). In addition, Bushnell Hall is designated as a women’s residence hall to integrate housing on the South Campus.
In July, Karen Burke joins Kenyon as assistant director of women’s physical education and the first full-time coach of the College’s field hockey and women’s lacrosse teams. For five of her eleven years at Kenyon, she simultaneously coaches four sports: basketball, field hockey, lacrosse, and volleyball.
Kenyon announces the formation of a women’s basketball team.
In the April 26 issue of the Collegian, the members of Kenyon’s women’s lacrosse team are referred to as the Lordettes in an article (written by a woman) about a recent contest with the College of Wooster’s Scots. Fortunately, the name fails to catch on.
Jean Dunbar ’73, becomes the first Kenyon woman to be awarded a Danforth Scholarship for graduate study.
On May 27, Kenyon graduates its first fully coeducational class, consisting of 211 men and 100 women.
Also on May 27, U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm (Democrat of New York) becomes the first African-American woman to deliver the Commencement address at Kenyon and to receive an honorary doctorate from the College.
Geraldine “Geri” Coleman (now Tucker) ’74 becomes the first woman to serve as president of the Black Student Union.
Georgiene Radlick ’76, becomes the first woman to be elected president of a senior class.
Kenyon’s Women’s Center becomes an official student organization, with headquarters in a former Peirce Hall storeroom.
In addition, February sees the resignation of Sharon A. Decker, the first woman to be hired into a tenure-track position in the Department of English. Decker cites “social isolation,” “hostility,” and “lack of understanding,” as well as opposition to change, among her reasons for leaving to accept a job at her graduate alma mater, the University of Virginia.
Also on March 5, Dame Kathleen Kenyon, noted archaeologist and a cousin of the fourth Lord Kenyon, offers a talk entitled “Digging Up Jerusalem” in Higley Hall Auditorium.
On March 31, President Jordan announced the appointment of Donna Hurt Scott as Kenyon’s part-time equal opportunity coordinator, reporting directly to him and serving also as the staff assistant to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women at Kenyon.
In April, Glenda Enderle, a counselor in Kenyon’s Smythe House, announces her resignation from the College.
On July 26, Gene C. Payne, who had served as head nurse at Kenyon’s Health Service, dies at the age of fifty-nine. One of the College’s first African-American employees, Payne joined the Kenyon staff in 1962 after many years as head nurse at Mercy Hospital in Mount Vernon, Ohio.
At Honors Day, Nina Freedman ’77 becomes the first woman to be awarded Kenyon’s E. Malcolm Anderson Cup, for the student who has done the most for the College in the preceding year.
The Kenyon Festival Theater is established. It goes on to present five summers’ worth of high-quality comedy and drama in Gambier, drawing such noted actors as Jane Curtin and Joanne Woodward to the Bolton Theater stage.
In March, the Ladies swimming team makes its first appearance at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III championships.
The Kenyon Inn opens for business.
On May 7, John Dana Kushan, longtime director and then dean of admissions and financial aid and early champion of coeducation, dies of a heart attack.
On July 1, Harlene Marley of the Department of Dance and Drama becomes Kenyon’s first female faculty member to be awarded a full professorship.
The Kenyon Athletic Association (KAA) establishes the KAA Hall of Fame.
On July 1, Lisa Dowd Schott ’80 becomes the first woman, and first Kenyon alumna, to serve as the College’s director of alumni and parent programs.
The Kenyon Athletic Association Hall of Fame inducts its second class, including its first woman, two-sport (swimming and track) All-American Elizabeth Ann Batchelder (now Boring) ’84.
At the Honors Day Convocation in April, Cornelia “Buffy” Ireland Hallinan ’76, becomes the first Kenyon alumna to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the College.
At the Honors Day Convocation on April 15, Teresa E. Cunningham (now Lowen) ’93, is announced as a recipient of a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study at the University of London.
Other women awarded national fellowships and scholarships include at Honors Day include Jennifer S. Sampson ’92, Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities; Sarah Y. Butzen ’93, Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.
On May 13, Roberta Teale Swartz Chalmers, poet, professor, widow of President Gordon Keith Chalmers, and often unacknowledged cofounder of the Kenyon Review, dies at her home in Newton, Massachusetts, at the age of eighty-nine.
In October, Kenyon announces a $1.25-million gift from Peg and Andrew Thomson P’76 and the Beatrice P. Delany Charitable Trust to fund the Sheila and Philip Jordan Jr. Professorship in Environmental Science.
Also in October, Professor of History Joan Cadded is awarded the Pfizer Prize, recognizing the year’s most outstanding work in the history of science, for her book “Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture.”
On April 14, M. Kristina Peterson ’73, then the executive vice president of Random House Children’s Publishing, receives an honorary doctor of laws at Kenyon’s Honors Day Convocation. At the same event, Melissa L. Kravetz ’99 becomes the College’s first student to be awarded the Doris B. Crozier Award and the E.Malcolm Anderson Cup in the same year.
Cornelia “Buffy” Ireland Hallinan ’76 becomes the first Kenyon alumna to be elected chair of the College’s board of trustees.
Kenyon’s board of trustees creates the Dissertation/Teaching Fellowship to allow promising Ph.D. candidates from under-represented groups to complete their dissertations while teaching on a limited basis and participating in the life of the College.
On April 15, Julia F. Johnson ’73 is awarded an honorary doctor of laws at Kenyon’s Honors Day Convocation.
Inductees to the Kenyon Athletic Association Hall of Fame include the 1972 field hockey and 1973 women’s lacrosse teams and their coach, Karen Burke.
The Philander Chase Corporation, now the Philander Chase Conservancy, is created to lead Kenyon’s efforts to preserve the College’s rural environment, with Douglas L. Givens P’03 as managing director. Among the members of the inaugural board of directors is Anne C. Griffin ’78, who continues to serve in 2019.
Kenyon appoints its first woman president, S. Georgia Nugent, a former dean at Princeton University and a member of Princeton’s Class of 1973 – its first fully coeducational class.
On July 1, S. Georgia Nugent becomes Kenyon’s eighteenth president.
Following the death of Kenyon parent and trustee Marilyn V. Yarbrough, the College’s board names the Dissertation/Teaching Fellowship in her honor.
On April 12, Debra S. Lunn ’73 is awarded an honorary doctor of fine arts at Kenyon’s Honors Day Convocation. At the same event, Kelly P. Burke is announced as one of the College’s three winners of the year’s Barry M. Goldwater Excellence in Education Scholarships.
The Kenyon Farm, located on Zion Road just east of Gambier, is established. Among the first four students to reside at the farm are Claire O’Connell ’13 and Anna Peery ’14.
In March, Sean Michael Decatur, dean of Oberlin College, is elected as Kenyon’s nineteenth – and first African-American – president. He takes office on July 1.
On June 30, S. Georgia Nugent retires as Kenyon’s first woman president, after a decade in the position.
On Nov. 6, Elizabeth Pannill Fletcher ’97, a Democrat, wins election as U.S. Representative from the Seventh Congressional District of Texas and becomes the first Kenyon alumna to be voted into the U.S. Congress.
On Jan. 3, Elizabeth Pannill Fletcher ’97 is sworn in as a member of the 117th U.S. Congress, becoming the first Kenyon woman to serve on Capitol Hill.