Mancini recalled, “[t]he year began full of optimism and anticipa- tion... It was a year of much confusion brought on by a sudden influx of the opposite sex... Friendships, romances, and alliances took shape quickly...” legacy of the merger As time passed, more and more individuals in the school com- munity understood the benefits of the merger. When the tenth anniversary of coeducation at Hopkins Grammar Day Prospect Hill (HGDPH) rolled around, many were caught off guard. From the perspective of a Hopkins Grammar School alumnus, teacher, and Director of Admissions at HGDPH, Dana Blanchard ’63 HGS, the controversy about the merger seemed “like a puff of smoke.” After ten years, the merger appeared as “the only natural thing that could have happened.” In that period, beginning with DeAngelis in 1973, three girls had been elected to serve as Student Council President. By 1989, the first woman headed the Hopkins Committee of Trustees, Noreen Haffner. The administration of the school underwent a new invigoration. The concept of a working Board of Trustees with specified terms was a legacy of DPH brought over to the new school, as was the understanding of the value of a full-time fundraiser, hired by HGDPH in 1974. DPH’s Mary Brewster Thompson Scholar Award continued to be the highest academic honor the combined school granted (and still grants), and the DPH trophy for sportsmanship became and remains a testament to the strength and values of the girls schools. DPH faculty member beginning in 1960 and then HGDPH faculty member Heidi Dawidoff reflected after twenty years of coeducation that perhaps the two programs that benefited to the greatest degree by the introduction of coeducation were the arts and athletics. Since both became required at the new school, many stereotypes were challenged. She wrote in 1992 about new opportunities for boys in what had traditionally been regarded as the “feminine” province of the arts, while in athletics, “[b]oys don’t have to be and girls comfortably can be hot-shot athletes.” Dawidoff wrote elsewhere: I firmly believe that the merger gave two schools a chance to improve. I also firmly believe in coeducation, not just because I believe there’s a male point of view and a female point of view, and it’s nice for people to get together and trade views. If that’s all there were to it, regular newsletters or telegrams would suffice. We live in a coed world: we’re intended to and it’s in our interests to get along with each other, to have relationships with our own and the other sex. Apart from that, coeducation is simply more fun— it complicates life, but it’s more fun.
above and left : Scenes from the 1973 production of Guys and Dolls.
VIEWS FROM THE HILL | 2023 • ISSUE 1
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