News Release

A new exhibit at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries takes a closer look at the forces surrounding the 1969 decision to make the university co-educational. "Going Co-Ed" explores the complex ideas surrounding women's place in the university and in broader American society through the lens of two student publications, before and after the first female students were admitted.

The exhibit is free and open to the public through May in the Special Collections Department on A-Level in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, located on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus at 3400 North Charles St.

Presented in coordination with the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, the exhibit highlights the considerable challenges of co-education shared by both male and female students and the array of responses that "going co-ed" provoked at Johns Hopkins, ranging from open hostility to earnest support. Three decades later, these materials remain relevant to the Hopkins community as they underscore the reality that the basic rights of educational opportunity, which women may sometimes assume they have always had, were neither always granted, nor so easily won, say the curators, History Department graduate students Katharine Hijar and Kate Jones.

The exhibit may be viewed during the Special Collections Department's regular hours, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Thursdays.

The Sheridan Libraries encompass the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and its collections at the Hutzler Reading Room, Garrett Library and the George Peabody Library.