New Haven for Women

Whiffing and poofing, Yalemen heard last week that little ewes may some day stray into the college as undergraduates. "Yale has a national duty," said a faculty report, "to provide the rigorous training for women that we supply for men." Moreover, "women should not be admitted on a token basis but as a substantial proportion of each class." Old Blues turned purple at the report, although Yale already has 800 women graduate students.

But not so New Blues. Asked how Yale's 3,910 underclassmen would view girls at the gates, one senior replied crisply: "I think they would be ecstatic." Yale girls will have to be formidable students. Last week's report also urged tighter admission standards to make Yale more than ever a place where the best brains prepare for graduate training and professional--particularly academic--careers. Said the report: "Candidates whose records show exceptionally high promise of continuing intellectual achievement should be sought out and admitted without regard for any other criteria save those indicative of emotional maturity and good character. All other applicants for admission should be considered in the light of the fact that Yale is first and foremost an intellectual enterprise." A bit to the northeast, women also got their due--or something close to it. When the Harvard Corporation in 1892 approved the launching of Radcliffe College, it cautiously raised an academic fence between the female annex and the Harvard Yard by resolving that "no Harvard A.B. be given to women." But creeping feminism has been the rule since 1943, when Cliffies and Harvard men began taking their classes together under Harvard professors. Last week the Corporation came to a logical conclusion: it voted to bestow Harvard degrees on Radcliffe graduates. Starting with the class of 1963, Radcliffe girls will at last become Harvard women.

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