“I wasn’t so naive that I thought there wouldn’t be issues going coed at Dartmouth—but I wanted to be part of the solution from the beginning,” said Ann Fritz Hackett ’76.
Meet Martha Johnson Beattie, Carol Vaughan Bemis, Cathy Joyce Brennan, Ann Fritz Hackett, Sara Hoagland Hunter, and Nancy Kepes Jeton, all members of the historic Class of 1976 and the Centennial Circle, a small but mighty group of women responsible for over $100 million in financial aid funding over the last twelve years.
The Class of ’76 was the first to matriculate as a four-year, coeducational class. The women who rose to the challenge were cut from the same cloth. They were resilient, strong, good-humored, and humble, all qualities which ensured their ability to survive and thrive in contentious times.
“I remember my interviewer said, ‘Well, Ms. Johnson, full disclosure, I have to tell you that I’m against coeducation.’ And I don’t know how I came up with this, but I remember I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s my job to convince you otherwise,’” Beattie said. “Dartmouth has to have women. You can’t go into the next century and still be all male.”
We didn’t take it personally, because we knew it was an institution going through transition. We didn’t feel personally targeted.
Hackett recalled a particularly eventful night, right when she began at Dartmouth. “I remember my roommate and I got a brick through the window—”
“Ah, I was waiting for the brick story,” Hunter piped up, already familiar.
“—in the middle of the night,” Hackett continued. “And Time Magazine was outside our door the next morning wanting to do the story. They were on campus, I think, to report on problems in the early days of coeducation, and we wouldn’t talk to them. We didn’t take it personally, because we knew it was an institution going through transition. We didn’t feel personally targeted.”
This was a recurring theme in their stories, an understanding that most of the controversy really boiled down to change resistance, not personal indictments. And in fact, it was the ability to forge a new path and be a part of something difficult that compelled many of them to apply to Dartmouth at all.
“You are a first. It’s just a really fun experience to be a part of something new and watch a traditional college change as women come on board,” Bemis shared.
Bemis’ sister, a member of the first coeducational class at Williams College, stressed the gratification of bringing about change at a historic institution. In fact, many of the women had already made plans to attend other liberal arts institutions, and then changed course once Dartmouth announced it would admit women.
They pivoted because their fathers had attended Dartmouth and loved it; because they wanted to study with Einstein’s mathematician, John G. Kemeny; because they loved the arts; because they loved to ski; because they had a life-changing canoe trip through Hanover and fell in love. They pivoted because they knew Dartmouth had something special to offer, and they were ready to be a part of the change here.
Debts of Gratitude
And yet, with all they accomplished, the ’76 women would never take full credit for their trailblazing. The conversation was peppered with shoutouts to professors, coaches, interviewers, their male classmates, and women who came before and after them.
Upperclassmen cheered on women’s teams at sporting events and congratulated them after Glee Club performances. Coaches agreed to lead the women’s teams without any additional pay, just because they believed women had the right to be there, too.
And praise was given to the administration at Dartmouth for ensuring the women had access to every aspect of the college experience.
“It was so much fun to be on the first tennis team. It was so much fun to start the a cappella group. You could do everything,” said Hunter. “Nothing had been started yet, so it felt like the world was open to us.”
But it took a powerful group of women to seize those opportunities with such vigor. “When I reflect on our class of women, I think you see running through them a combination of optimism, courage, willingness to enter in and believing we had every bit as much right to be there—even though we were told, again and again, that we didn’t,” Hackett said. “It didn’t matter. It didn’t daunt us.”
Paying It Forward
Years later, these six alumnae chose to join the Centennial Circle, participating in another landmark effort by women at Dartmouth. The Centennial Circle, founded in 2014, has established a new national standard for alumnae-led philanthropy in higher education, making history even outside the snowy Upper Valley.
“I knew the Centennial Circle founders were courageously leading the way as women and pioneers to make the institution a better place for everyone,” Beattie said. “I just loved the full circle moment.”
It was another pioneering effort—all too familiar to these women—but it was also another opportunity for sisterhood and camaraderie, this time with women across decades at Dartmouth.
“I joined the Centennial Circle for community. It’s irreplaceable. It’s what Dartmouth’s all about. It’s what informed us and takes us forward,” said Jeton.
Brennan, too, made lifelong friendships at Dartmouth, and the Circle was another means of doing so. “Dartmouth, to me, is who my family was and is.”
Although acknowledging that not everyone had such a positive experience, Hunter couldn’t say enough about it. “The friendships and the joy just run so deep, and the bonding in our all-girls dorm…those friendships last,” she said. “And the group who’s in the Centennial Circle, we are such close friends. I had no idea how much those four years would influence my life. I mean, the most important friendships in my life are my Dartmouth friends.”
The impact these women had on Dartmouth hasn’t wavered. Through their generosity, they get to ensure future generations of women to have a seat at the table, just like they did.
“We're a community, but we’re so different from each other. And we each took something unique away from the College and built upon that,” Jeton said. “I want to give that opportunity to as many people as I can.”