— T H E G I R L S O F ’ 77 —
Until that point, women at Groton ‘mainly played supporting roles, such as doing office work, serving tea at social functions, and sewing costumes for theater.
But Groton did not get serious about admitting girls until 1970, when Headmaster Paul Wright and the Board of Trustees set up the Committee on Coeducation to study the matter in depth. In 1971, after careful review, the trustees approved the committee’s recommendation that the school go coed. Though widely accepted by much of the larger Groton community, the decision was met with a modicum of alumni pushback. “Some thought coeducation was an exciting adventure, but others thought it would be the end of Groton School as we know it,” explains school archivist Douglas Brown ’57. In response to the dissent, the committee’s proposal got a second review by trustees, but the decision to admit girls was reaffirmed a year later. Obviously, the coeducation process was not a small undertaking. It required time, money, and personnel changes, not to mention a reconsideration of Groton’s basic ethos. In addition, the school needed qualified female students willing to take the plunge. To cover the costs, a multimilliondollar fundraising campaign was launched. To ready the campus buildings, architects
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Groton School Quarterly
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Spring 2017
and engineers were hired. There were dorms to be renovated, a girls’ locker room to be created, and women’s washrooms to be added just about everywhere. But the required modifications extended well beyond the school’s physical plant. To provide a nurturing environment for female students, the role of, attitude toward, and presence of women on campus had to change too. Women’s roles were rapidly evolving in the early 1970s, and some of the necessary adjustments might have come to Groton without our prodding. But a school steeped in the education of boys had to take more proactive measures if it was to open its doors to girls. Until that point, women at Groton mainly played supporting roles, such as doing office work, serving tea at social functions, and sewing costumes for theater productions. “Parallel changes among the adult women on