[A CAPPELLA SINGING]
TV REPORTER: Princeton University, in Princeton, New
Jersey, today announced the end of it's all-male
educational tradition.
SUSAN CRAIG SCOTT: They made the final decision to admit
women to the university, not just to admit women to the
university, but to do it within the next eight months.
MARSHA LEVY-WARREN: Arriving on campus in 1969, there was a
tremendous amount of hubbub.
SUSAN CRAIG SCOTT: And as soon as we heard that that was what
was going to happen, we among ourselves decided that we
would apply.
MAE WONG MILLER: When we arrived on campus
there was no housing.
MARSHA LEVY-WARREN: It felt like a small group of women on
a male campus.
CAROL BROWN: The university was ready for co-education but
still adjusting.
MARSHA LEVY-WARREN: Most of the precepts I was in, I was
usually the only female in the room.
I say in the room because, of course, there weren't a lot of
female faculty members, either,
although there were some.
And they were very important to us.
NANCY MALKIEL: They had systems, if you will, for
understanding what to do about spouses who were women, but
the, what do we do if it's a woman faculty member with a
male spouse, nobody knew how to reckon with that.
MARSHA LEVY-WARREN: The impetus was to have a place
for us that felt defined by us.
It was extremely important to just meet and talk-- and talk
from the heart--
about what it was like to be a woman, for it to be 1969,
1970, 1971.
The Vietnam War was about and feminism was really taking
hold in a different way, and we wanted to talk about
politics and personal lives and how we
envisioned our futures.
JUANITA JAMES: So much happened in a relatively short
period of time from us coming in as the vanguard to being
involved with every aspect of the fabric of university life,
and in leadership roles.
CAROL BROWN: We were definitely a class of women
who were there ready to take on the world.
The active female athletes were a mix of what might have
been labeled feminists, but most of us were just saying,
hey, I want to do this and there's no reason I shouldn't
be allowed to, and I'm not going to
take no for an answer.
[POP MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNE CHENG: I think the reason why my works focus so much on
race and gender and how they intersect is because not only
do they intersect, they're very parallel.
You know, this question of, how does a woman come to find
her own voice and a place in the world, is to me very
intimately tied into the question of how you go from
being an immigrant to a citizen.
think that the difficult thing is to assimilate, but to do so
in a way that you can still hold on to who you are.
[POP MUSIC PLAYING]
JESS DEUTSCH: I think that the male-female ratio was moving
toward more balance while I was an undergraduate, so as
women I think we felt we could pretty much
do anything on campus.
We certainly hoped for more female administrators,
faculty, and coaches as mentors, but basically, I
think we knew that we belonged to Princeton and that
Princeton belonged to us.
PATRICE JEAN: For women in the sciences, especially in the
department of molecular biology, it was
actually quite fantastic.
There were several very young established and accomplished
professors, including at the time Professor Shirley
Tilghman, now President Tilghman.
JUANITA JAMES: I don't think I would have imagined as an
undergraduate that in my lifetime I would live to see a
woman become president of Princeton University.
MALE SPEAKER: To the best of my ability.
SHIRLEY TILGHMAN: To the best of my ability.
MALE SPEAKER: So help me, God.
SHIRLEY TILGHMAN: So help me, God.
NANCY MALKIEL: To have a faculty member like that so
admired and so well known across the campus be selected
as president was simply exhilarating.
And to have it be a woman.
SHIRLEY TILGHMAN: Well, I think the significance for me
was not as a woman or even as the first woman
president of Princeton.
I was really focused from the instant I knew that I was
going to be president, and I'm trying to be the very best
president I could be.
But I do understand completely that for many others it had a
deep significance.
We had a long and storied history in which we were
largely a male institution.
Women had, as you know, had arrived on campus relatively
recently, given our long history, and therefore I think
for many there was a significance to having the
first woman president.
CAROL BROWN: We knew we'd been picked to lead.
We weren't sure what we were going to lead or where we were
going to lead, but we were ready to take on anything.
JUANITA JAMES: I credit my Princeton experience for
turning me into a leader.
MAE WONG MILLER: Life on an all-male campus was easier
than going into a male-dominated work world.
[POP MUSIC PLAYING]
ADDIE MICIR: Princeton is full of women who are very set in
what they want and their ideas, and it's great to see
them in leadership positions all throughout campus.
NORMA LOPEZ CAMPOS: My favorite thing about Princeton
has been its people.
And yeah, a lot of those people have been women, and I
don't think I would have stepped up to the leadership
positions that I have if it had not been for the past
leaders that came before me.
ADDIE MICIR: The women speak their mind here on campus, and
it's been a great experience all around.
SHIRLEY TILGHMAN: I think Princeton is a place that has
the capacity to empower students.
We want students to arrive on this campus already prepared
to be stimulated, to be challenged, but for me the
most important thing is when they graduate they feel
empowered, ready to take on the world, ready to make a
difference in the world.
And I hope that as much for our women students as I do for
our male students.
We're going to need them all in the future, and that's what
our job has to be going forward at Princeton.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]