Vassar College Exchange Program
The Vassar College Exchange Program took place during the spring semester of 1969 and served as a way to introduce both Trinity and Vassar colleges to becoming coeducational. Trinity, at the time a male-only college, exchanged a number of male students for several of Vassar College's female students. Vassar is an institution in New York that was a women's college until 1969.
Trinity students had to pass and be selected from an application process in order to be accepted to the one-semester-long exchange, and were expected to keep up a five-class course load while at Vassar. The 25 selected Vassar women at Trinity were reportedly treated equitably to the male students, and were held to the same rules and granted the same privileges (such as being allowed a car on campus). They were housed on the second floor of North Campus Hall.
The need for the program was in doubt after Trinity officially announced in January 1969 that the College would be coeducational beginning with the fall semester of that year. As a result, the program was only implemented in the spring of 1969.
Reactions of participants from each side of the exchange can be found below in the 1969 Alumni Magazine. Both colleges, though for differing reasons, believed that the program fostered change within the colleges and that coeducation was possible.
Sources
Trinity Alumni Magazine, Spring 1969.
The Trinity Tripod, 01/16/1969.
The Trinity Tripod, 11/01/1968.