Women's History Month: Admissions and Residences
Shriya SekhsariaBefore women were admitted to the University as degree-earning students in 1969, their role evolved from sister college neighbors to party mates to a key part of the Critical Languages Program.As their strength increased despite an all-malecampus atmosphere and vocal conservative alumni, the women lived together at the Graduate College and at Pyne Hall before being integrated into the coeducational residential college system.Orange and White: The Beginning of Evelyn College In 1887, Joshua Hall McIlvaine, Class of 1837 and a former University professor, founded the University's sister college called the Evelyn College for Women, which graduated the first class of women in 1893. While the University granted Evelyn students full access to the University’s libraries and museum, it also imposed many regulations on them, such as a strict schedule and a formal dress code. “The girls couldn’t come in town with smiles on their faces —they had no liberties at all,” Irving Mershon, a Princeton resident, told the Princeton Packet about Evelyn students, according to the book“Transforming the Tiger" by Catherine Keyser '01. University students would stand outside Evelyn College and shout, “Eva, Eva, l-y-n, Eva, Eva, let me in!”,according to thePrinceton Companion published in 1978. One of the Evelyn students also noted that a police force was employed around the clock to protect the college from the University’s men, according to an Oct.
