October 1, 1968
Negotiations began between six men’s colleges (Bowdoin, Amherst, Dartmouth, Williams, Colgate, and Trinity) and Vassar to begin an exchange program next semester. By December, approximately 70 Vassar women and 70-80 men from Colgate, Williams, and Trinity registered in the exchange.
“Men in classes and on campus is the only way to prevent stagnancy,” declared Susan Casteras ‘71, managing editor of The Miscellany News,” when interviewed by The New York Times about a new exchange program with Williams. But Janet Stanton ’72 had doubts about both coeducation at Vassar and the plans to achieve it. “The way we’re doing it,” she said, “will take many years and probably after that Vassar will be a second rate school. We’ll have to refuse qualified women and take unqualified men.”
As the fall progressed, trustees at other men’s colleges approved a student exchange with Vassar, and faculty exchanges were also discussed. At his inauguration on October 12th, Trinity president Theodore D. Lockwood announced that a Vassar exchange would make the college “coeducational on a trial basis” and that the Trinity trustees had approved the immediate start of a coeducation feasibility study. Colgate University joined the exchange ten days later.