The Deans' Bible. Angie Klink

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      The parade reinvigorated the suffrage movement and aided in propelling the country toward the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification on August 18, 1920. With a parade, a vision, and courage, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns reignited a national ardor for the women’s vote.

      This was America for women when Carolyn Shoemaker became the first dean of women at Purdue University.

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       ARTISTS OF LIFE

      SIX YEARS AFTER CAROLYN SHOEMAKER was appointed Purdue’s first dean of women, Stanley Coulter, Carolyn’s former instructor, was named Purdue’s first dean of men. Slowly, universities in the United States added the Office of the Dean of Men during the 1910s and 1920s. Administrators were jittery about women on campus, so they made rules and regulations for them and thought a dean of women was needed to guide the girls. The male students were left to their own devices with few rules, so at the outset, administrators didn’t think they needed a dean of men.

      In 1916, the deans of women united officially and founded the National Association of Deans of Women (NADW), a branch of the National Education Association (NEA). The first annual meeting, organized by Kathryn Sisson Phillips, dean of women at Ohio Wesleyan University, was entitled “What a Dean of Women Is—What Her Duties Are.” Gertrude S. Martin gave the key address at the first program and pinpointed poetically what a dean does:

      We are trying to define the dean. Some say the dean is just a chaperone—a nice, ladylike person. Others say the dean is a necessary evil, a concession.… Others say the dean is a sort of adjunct to the President, because the President usually lacks at least one of the qualifications for the dean.

      The fact is the dean of women is unique! She is expected to teach and do a great many other things. She is preeminently a teacher of the art of living. She asks: How many of us are artists of life ourselves?

      Often when a group of women come together, there is a sisterhood formed that can facilitate change. The collecting of deans of women was no different. In the decades to follow, the NADW would prove to be a lobbying powerhouse and a force of nature as it connected deans of women throughout the country in common goals for females everywhere. Their discussions and resolutions were on cutting-edge topics. They came to define themselves as humanists. Future Purdue deans of women would make their marks and become known throughout the United States through the NADW, later named the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors (NAWDC).

      The early deans of women established the foundations of professional practice for student affairs and higher education administration. They developed a body of professional literature, which included journals, research reports, and books. The deans of women at Purdue would write many papers for such periodicals.

      The pioneering women of NADW worked hard to “professionalize” the position of dean and to legitimize her role. The deans of women were early champions of the scientific methods of guidance for students. After World War I, their vocation would be termed “student personnel work.” They often challenged each other and their campuses to “do the right thing” by women. During their first informal meeting in Chicago in 1903, the country’s collective deans of women passed a resolution condemning “gender segregation” in higher education. This cause to condemn gender segregation in universities perpetuates still today.

      In “How the Deans of Women Became Men,” printed in The Review of Higher Education, Robert A. Schwartz wrote candidly of the unfair, demeaning, and stereotypical views of deans of women: “Many of their significant accomplishments have been lost or ignored in compilations of the modern history of higher education. What remains is an unfortunate caricature of deans of women as ‘snooping battle axes’—prudish spinsters who bedeviled the harmless fun seeking of their students.”

      Schwartz also gave his opinion as to why the achievements of deans of women have been disregarded: “This inaccurate view results from the male voice’s domination of written and oral histories of American colleges and universities … the accomplishments of deans of women have rarely received honest evaluation, validation, or appreciation. Rather, they have been discounted, discredited, or ignored.”

      Schwartz then imparted women deans their due: “In reality, the deans of women were consummate professionals who anchored much of their work to the academic principles of rigorous research and scholarly dissemination of their findings. Many of the significant and well-established practices of student affairs work and higher education administrations that exist today were first put in place through the work of the deans of women.”

      Additionally, the deans of men gathered as a group but with a very different mind-set and direction. The first recorded meeting of deans of men took place casually in 1919 “for a discussion of our problems.” The men came together because of a concern about student discipline. (Since the male students had few rules, unlike the females who had many, it is understandable that discipline would be a concern.)

      Two years later, the gathering formerly organized under the name of the National Association of Deans of Men (NADM). The meetings were social and club-like, sounding almost like a men’s society where they could imbibe and smoke cigars, in contrast to the professionalism of the national conferences of the deans of women. According to Schwartz: “The deans of men enjoyed the opportunity to converse, to enjoy local hospitalities and activities, and to regale each other with tales from their campuses. Over time, issues of professionalism, graduate study, and the role of the dean of men were topics of discussion, but they were addressed in a more affable, informal manner with less emphasis on scholarship and research than the deans of women demonstrated in their sessions.”

      Purdue’s own Dean of Men Stanley Coulter revealed his sense of humor when he described his position. Coulter said:

      What is Dean of Men? I have tried to define him. When the Board of Trustees elected me Dean of Men, I wrote to them very respectfully and asked them to give me the duties of the Dean of Men. They wrote back that they did not know what they were but when I found out to let them know. I worked all the rest of the year trying to find out. I discovered that every unpleasant task that the president or the faculty did not want to do was my task. I was convinced that the Dean of Men’s office was intended as the dumping ground of all unpleasant things.

      CAROLYN’S LOVE OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE blossomed in her speeches. The creation of a Community Center for Women began through her articulated words.

      During World War I, when women sewed bandages and knitted socks, gloves, and hats to be sent overseas to the men in battle, fifteen sewing machines belonging to war relief organizations were hauled around the city of Lafayette because they had no permanent resting spot where women could congregate and work for civic causes. Carolyn not only thought of the welfare and needs of her Purdue women, but she wanted to help women of her community.

      Lucy Eunice Coulter (wife of Purdue’s Stanley Coulter) was superintendent of the Industrial School and Free Kindergarten in Lafayette. Members of the Purdue faculty volunteered their services there.

      On Valentine’s Day that year, Carolyn was asked to speak to the women on the board of this organization. The title of her speech was “Civic Needs.” She talked about the necessity of a central meeting place and shelter for girls and women. Carolyn was concerned about women who visited the city from rural farms СКАЧАТЬ