Courtesy of Drew Magazine. Article originally appeared in the Summer 2002 edition, by John Cunningham C'38
In the sping of 2002. Jean Remaly C'47 and I sat comfortably in her pleasant home in Upper Nyack NY, remembering well that autumn day in 1946 when she, Jean Van Campen, and Joy Werner headed across the campus to Mead Hall for a crucial meeting. A Drew University trustee committee had summoned them to discuss whether or not women would continue to be enrolled in Brothers College. Facing plummeting male enrollment and possible closure, the college had become coeducational in 1942. It had little, or perhaps nothing, to do with ideology. Women were needed, just as they were needed in the production lines of American industry. They were welcomed at Drew, but only for "the duration" - until the boys came home. The trio, among the earliest enrolled women, marched up the Mead Hall steps to confront a critical moment in Drew's history.
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The editor erred. The College faculty was doing its basic algebra: women students 
(x) times tuition (y) equaled faculty salaries (a) and building maintainence (b). In October 1942, the faculty recommended that "properly qualified students... irrespective of race, sex, or religious preference" should be admitted. Since race or religion had barred no one, that left only sex as something relevant, as far as admission was concerned.
It was considerably less than a shock heard around the world, but many die-hard alumni reacted sharply. , although they held their fire for "the duration." Women! Gone would be the macho days when an average male student wore sloppy clothes, shaved once a week, and played blackjack in the college basement without benefit of deodorant or mouthwash. Anyone with even a slim knowledge of Drew History should not have been surprised that women students would be attending classes. On April 1, 1915, the progressive Drew Theological Seminary faculty was deadly serious when it voted for the first time to admit women "on the same condition as accorded to men." Conservative trustees hedged on the radical recommendation, somewhat agreeing in a complexity of words that the original charter did not forbid females. They compromised, but only agreed that the seminary should "offer courses for training for other forms of service than being a minister to all students as may desire to take them."
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The issue of women students in the college surfaced occasionally. In 1938, veteran Seminary Professor Charles Sitterly, son-in-law of president Henry Anson Buttz and 77 years old, wrote this unequivocal endorsement of women on campus: _ No great university, and especially no great Christian university, can attain a continuous state of expansion and balanced development, which does not make full and free provision, in every discipline and curriculum, of its several colleges for the training of women... The inhibition in the case of Brothers College is easy to explain... but a Women's College of Liberal Arts could be supplied as easily as that for men. Surely no future colleges as Drew University , whether in art, science, literature, law or medicine, can be conceived or constructed which will not be open for women._
Then the guns of Pearl Harbor sounded. Men left the campus. When the faculty voted in October 1942 to ask trustees to consider women for the College, it was known that 50 men would leave in a mass exodus in March 1943. The trustees agreed that women had to be enlisted, but only for the duration. It was a far cry from forever.
Four women registered in December 1942/ : Anne Rubino of Morristown filed the first application. Ruth Nelson and Eleanor Jeter, both of Chatham, were the first to be interviewed by College Dean Frank Lankard; they came together. Carol Stephens of Chatham was first to submit her records. None of that quartet qualified as the first female student. She was Mrs. Nora Mielke, wife of a seminary student. She entered in in February 1943 and for a time was the only woman enrolled in the College. The most vital "first", the first woman to earn a diploma from Brothers College, was Sayoko Nakata, a transfer student who received her bachelor of arts degree in October 1944. She was the daughter of Japanese parents and the wife of an American soldier.
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She moved on campus in September 1945, into Rogers Hall, that one-time bastion of male supremacy. Taps had sounded for the V-12. The campus awoke to the reveille of returning servicemen. Women held sway for a bit; the College that fall had 48 veterans, 57 "civvies" (males who didn't make it into uniform), and 139 women. Among the ex-servicemen was Howard Remanly of Shickshinney Pa.. Jean first saw him across a crowded room, had someone introduce them and that was that. They were married in 1948, and are still married in 2002.
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Jean underestimated the opposition. The nearly all male alumni association opposed continuation of the duration. Sports supporters lined up against continuation. Most faculty members supported co-education, some with strong reservations. Professors James McClintock, Earl Aldrich, and Robert Schultz represented the faculty on the committee. Several males expressed opposition but none so bluntly as Stanley Raub, a star athlete and president of the senior class. He did not temporize in his remarks: Frankly, I'm disappointed in the trustees and the administration... let's not seek the easy way out. School was started here in 1928 as a man's institution and over the years it made a good name and a good reputation for itself. Since the economic reason for having coeds does not exist anymore, we are disappointed that you hesitate to do what we thought you would do-- oust the coeds.
There had to be an answer. Up stepped Jean Elmore. She had become the spokesperson for women. In simple eloquence and dignity, she said: The men raise the question- are we really serious about getting an education? There is plenty of evidence on campus that girls have a great desire for education. Girls work their way through college, which shows a desire for education. The girls in the future must have the opportunity that we have had in the past. Veterans idealize Drew as it was and it has been a shock to them on their return.
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