Institutional Changes: So Many Changes all at Once
Karen discussed how the matriculation of female students coincided with numerous other changes. Dartmouth College changed their school mascot to the "Big Green" and instituted the infamous D-Plan (the trimister system). None of these changes were gradually implemented and they were met by some resistance by students, faculty, and staff.
As Stefan Bradley discussed in Upending the Ivory Tower: The Civil Rights , Black Power, and the Ivy League, the Ivy Leauge as a whole was resistant to change. While civil rights activists at Dartmouth did not face as much violent resistance as their counterparts faced at other schools, the institution's isolation made change harder. Attending a predominantly white, male institution was challenging on its own, all the more so because students had a limited support network due to geographical isolation.
By the time Karen attended Dartmouth, the civil rights movement was not as momentous as it had been in the 1950s and 1960s. However, Black Dartmouth students, especially women, were still fighting for inclusivity and equality. In the 1970s, the "Redding Report on Institutional Racism and Student Life at Dartmouth" (published by the Afro-American Society) and the Trustee Committee on Equal Opportunity seeked to facilitate more change on campus. Black women were front and center of these movements. Eileen Cave, Monica Hargrove and Judi Redding wrote the "Redding Report," while Karen worked on the Trustee Committee on Equal Opportunity that followed-up the report.
"But you also have to remember too when we came in ‘72, not only are you bringing in women, but you're also getting rid of the Dartmouth symbol, which was the Indian at the time. Yeah. That's when they went to the Big Green. So for some alums it was just, 'oh, my gosh, like all of this change.' And so you would go to events, like, you're talking about homecoming, homecoming games. I'm sure I went to the games because, you know, I like athletics. I mean, I'm teaching a course on sports media now. So you would hear people doing 'wah-hoo-wah' and it's like, no, this is no longer the Dartmouth Indians, it's the Big Green and so that went on for a while as well."
After eliminating the use of the Indian symbol, Dartmouth transitions to using "The Big Green" as their mascot.