On Thursday, March 7th, the History Department and campus community gathered in Alumni Hall for Professor Jennifer Hull’s lecture, “The Original Co-eds: The Hamilton Female Seminary and Women at Colgate, 1855-1895,” as part of the Division of Social Sciences Luncheon Seminar Series and the Colgate Bicentennial celebration.
Professor Hull, Bicentennial Research Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of History, spoke to an absolutely full room of students and professors interested in learning about how Colgate arrived at co-education. In her research, Professor Hull looked at not only a timeline of co-education, but also dove into the very question of what it means to have co-education, and how exactly we define it. While Colgate did not officially become co-ed until 1970, Professor Hull found Colgate’s history to be scattered with various manifestations of co-education. There were many cases of women taking courses on campus and even being seemingly well integrated into the fabric of life at Colgate, from early female students, to exchange students, to G.I. wives post WWII. Professor Hull also explored the history of the Hamilton Female Seminary and the possibility that it was, or could have become, a coordinate college of Colgate.
A complete presentation of Professor Hull’s research can be found on the Colgate Bicentennial page linked below.
https://200.colgate.edu/looking-back/moments/enter-women-students