Coeducation

Consider this statement: Sarah Lawrence Collegewent coed in 1968.

True or false?

Nearly four decades later, students and alumnae/i know the answer-although they may not always like it-but the outside world often hesitates over it.

Yet even if they knew the answer, would they send their sons here? Or to any liberal arts college? Across the country, male college enrollments are dropping, and small coeducational schools are taking notice. While our ratio of men to women has remained virtually unchanged in spite of the trend, Sarah Lawrence continues to fight the single-sex perception.

So we decided it was time to take a look at Sarah Lawrence's rocky road to coeducation-and the declining presence of men in higher education. And we went to those who know whereof they speak-our students and alumnae/i-to think about the role gender played in their college choice.

We got some surprising answers. But getting surprising answers is, at Sarah Lawrence, never a surprise.

Cover photograph by Gary Gladstone, 1959