| Abstract: | Abstract Since 1994, undergraduate students at Rutgers University have had the opportunity to explore broad issues in the history of women's higher education by examining issues surrounding single-sex and coeducation at their own institution, with specific concentration on social issues and student culture. Four distinct seminars and projects, two of which incorporate oral history, and all four involving historical research in archival sources, have contributed to the historical literature and have added valuable documentation on the history of women at Rutgers University. This article presents an overview of these specific courses. It further provides an assessment from the particular perspective of a university archivist who attempts to document the history of the institution, promote the use of that documentary record by a diverse audience of users, including undergraduate students, and who has had the opportunity to teach two seminars on the history of women's higher education, using Rutgers as a case study. The courses to be discussed are: “Rutgers Women: A Living History” (1993-1995), a research seminar incorporating oral history of the first women students to enter the previously all-male Rutgers College in 1972; the Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II (1994 to present), an ongoing project recording the memories of Rutgers men and women and their wartime experiences; the Douglass College Scholar's Program seminar on psychobiography (1998), a seminar which explored the life of Mary Clara Kangler, a 1938 graduate of the New Jersey College for Women whose tragic life ended in suicide; and the Douglass College Scholar's Program seminar on the history of the Douglass College and its role in the history of women's higher education in the United States (1999-2002), a research seminar based on archival research which explored the experiences of women and the controversial issues surrounding women's education at Rutgers. |
