Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins

YALE NEEDS WOMEN by Anne Gardiner Perkins was just released this week and I am actually reading this book in tandem with Paul Tough’s new work about college, The Years That Matter Most. It is truly fascinating to reflect on changes and the differing experiences across generations. Perkins is writing about “How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant,” chronicling the experiences of several women who were among the first of their gender to attend Yale. For some of our students, it may be hard to believe that Yale and many other schools were only integrated gender-wise in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a generation or so ago.  Perkins does an excellent job of describing the feelings of those pioneering co-eds and her work could readily apply to events at other schools, like Union College.  In fact, Booklist says that YALE NEEDS WOMEN is “recommended for teens [because] teens approaching college age, especially those involved in social justice, will enjoy this window into a not-actually-that-distant past.”   

Perkins' book, though, is not just about the decision to admit women, but about what happened next and how subtle (or not so subtle) traditions and rituals impacted their experiences: “‘The worst part was being constantly conspicuous, which is something you don’t think about until it happens to you,’ said one freshman girl.”  Extremely well-researched, YALE NEEDS WOMEN contains a chart about the sources for oral histories and interviews, plus extensive notes (50+ pages), an index, and some black and white photos from the time.  Please look for a copy on our shelves soon – I am looking forward to having many conversations with interested readers. We still have much to do, as Perkins emphasizes through a number of statistics in her epilogue: “Women students today graduate at a higher rate than their male classmates, but their bachelor’s degrees earn them just 74 cents on the dollar compared to what men with the same credentials are paid. En route to that degree, one in five women is sexually assaulted. Nationally, women represent just 32 percent of full professors, and 26 percent of college and university presidents. … The battle … is not yet done.” 

The Years That Matter Most by Paul Tough

THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST by Paul Tough has been generating quite a bit news lately. Please NOTE that Paul Tough will be a FAN (Family Action Network) speaker at 7:00pm on Monday, Sept. 16 at the Cornog Auditorium on our Northfield campus; more details here.   

Tough is known for his earlier best-selling work, How Children Succeed, and he contributes regularly to The New York Times, such as with this recent and very popular article: “What College Admissions Offices Really Want” which itself is adapted from this new book where Tough writes about “How College Makes or Breaks Us,” compiling anecdotes and statistics.  He begins the book with a student waiting to hear admissions decisions from Princeton and University of Pennsylvania who says, “It feels like everything is depending on this. Which sounds dramatic, I know. But it’s true.” That emotion is certainly consistent with attitudes from our students and some parents, too. Tough empathizes and goes on to argue that “in sharp contrast to other ages and other cultures, mobility in the United States today depends, in large part, on what happens to individuals during a relatively brief period in late adolescence and early adulthood.” He outlines the studies which Raj Chetty has conducted about social mobility and the role of college.  One point I found particularly interesting was Tough’s summary that “in prewar [WWII] America, it may have taken pluck and elbow grease [i.e., entrepreneurship] to rise above your birth, but in postwar America, what it usually took was a college degree.” What about the future? Is this situation changing yet again in the 21st century?   

Tough also offers an entire chapter on fitting in, describing the experiences of first generation students at Princeton, Amherst and elsewhere. He later addresses the Graduation Gap, plus feelings of belonging and inclusion in a chapter titled “Staying In.” Tough describes a variety of higher education programs and approaches in a very engaging and thought-provoking manner. He moves between individual stories to a societal lens, looking, for example, at the role of the federal government and contrasting proposals from FDR and the Obama White House. I have already been recommending this new book to teachers, parents, and administrators, including our Post-High School Counselors. It is fascinating. Student researchers will appreciate the over 30 pages of notes and useful index. THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Added: here is a video of his interview (aired Sept. 13 and lasting about 10 minutes) on PBS NewsHour:

How to College by Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Hope Schwartz

Students and parents will be celebrating New Trier’s graduation tomorrow (with, helpfully, no rain in the forecast). An excellent guide to the next phase for many of them is HOW TO COLLEGE by Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Hope Schwartz.  This new and practical text is subtitled “what to know before you go (and when you're there).”  The authors provide numerous helpful tips in this very accessible book. For example, there are sections titled The New College You (about identity, living with roommates, and making friends); College is School (filled with ideas for mastering academic challenges); Resident Experts (dealing with staff, administrators, and self-advocating with professors); and Life Beyond the Classroom (activities, career, internships, and college town). I turned to the section called Take Care of You which discusses wellness, healthcare and campus security. Yes, there’s some references to insurance which may interest parents more. However, the authors primarily address students; for example, they offer some very useful self-assessment exercises like the 168 Assignment which is complete with charts to track how time is spent (grooming, eating, sleeping, going to class, exercising, studying, etc.) over the course of a week. There’s also some budgeting charts and information about loans and financial literacy in the Money Talk section which would be a great complement to The New York Times’ recent Financial Checklist for High School Grads. And, the final section, Your To Do List, is an organized (if somewhat daunting) summary of steps to achieve over the summer before attending college. Look for HOW TO COLLEGE on our shelves along with an updated and expanded edition of The HER Campus Guide to College Life by Stephanie Kaplan Lewis. Congratulations to our graduates!!