When founded in 1911 Connecticut College for Women was a pioneering women's college that
sought to prepare the progressive era's «new woman» to be self-sufficient. Despite a
path-breaking emphasis on preparation for work in the new fields opening to women Connecticut
College and its peers have been overlooked by historians of women's higher education. This book
makes the case for the significance of Connecticut College's birth and evolution and
contextualizes the college in the history of women's education. «Eighth Sister No More»
examines Connecticut College for Women's founding mission and vision revealing how its
grassroots founding to provide educational opportunity for women was altered by coeducation
how the college has been shaped by changes in thinking about women's roles and alterations in
curricular emphasis and the role local community ties played at the college's point of origin
and during the recent presidency of Claire Gaudiani the only alumna to lead the college.
Examining Connecticut College's founding in the context of its evolution illustrates how
founding mission and vision inform the way colleges describe what they are and do and whether
there are essential elements of founding mission and vision that must be remembered or
preserved. Drawing on archival research oral history interviews and seminal works on higher
education history and women's history «Eighth Sister No More» provides an illuminating view
into the liberal arts segment of American higher education.
