FOCUS: Coming Together

Student government merged in the 1960s, marking a victory for women's rights on campus. Student government merged in the 1960s, marking a victory for women's rights on campus.These days, Penn's only elected student government body, the Undergraduate Assembly, includes 22 men and 11 women who meet weekly. Their purpose is to achieve the goals of the student body as a whole. Until 1973, the College of Arts and Sciences was split between the College and the College for Women, each maintaining separate student governments. But in the 1960s, students began forming ideas that would change the face of the University's student government -- and the entire campus. In 1964, Vietnam and the Beatles were just beginning to factor into the conscious of American students. The Women's Student Government Association was dealing with issues such as women's curfew and a rule that restricted freshmen women from men's dorms. And the Men's Student Government decided to elect its president on the basis of a popular vote. Both bodies were very different from today's UA. The men's government consisted of the Assembly and Senate whose members served on eight committees -- Rules, Education, Finance, Campus Welfare, Investigations, Promotion and Publicity, Activities and Local, National and International Affairs. The members were elected through a slate system taken of the entire student body, with the exception of seniors. The body had the power to allocate student activities funding and to hear disciplinary cases against students through its judiciary branch. The women's governing body was more informal, made up of an assembly made up of class representatives. According to 1964's Daily Pennsylvanian, changes began with a move by the Men's Student Government -- called the MSG -- to increase its effectiveness. As part of this effort, the MSG began a gradual integration with the Women's Student Government Association, or the WSGA. The integration took place through increased communication and liaison committees made up of members of both governments. This process continued through 1964 and into 1965. In February 1965, then-College for Women junior Judith Seitz, now University President Judith Rodin, was elected WSGA president. Her platform included an endorsement of the integration process, with the ultimate goal of a co-ed government. Rodin said in an interview with the DP last week that the WSGA believed these were significant, timely changes. "Penn had had women at the University for a long time, most of them in the College for Women," Rodin said. "There were significant differences between the College and the College for Women in terms of opportunities and access." Rodin said the student government integration was "an important step to make sure that women were equal was equal government." "We felt that this was not what would serve this group of women best," she said last week. "Segregation was not what we were about. These were women who were all talking about what graduate and professional schools we were going to." Committee integration continued throughout the spring of 1965. In the fall, financial integration began with the creation of joint financial policies on October 1, 1965. But the WSGA had other problems to deal with in 1965. At the time, subtle sexual biases appeared to pervade many levels of the University. By 1965, women were still forbidden to enter University libraries and dining halls while wearing slacks. The Ivy League forbade female cheerleaders. And curfew and dormitory regulations on women were significantly harsher than those that applied to male students. Rodin said last week that many women felt segregated and unequal at the University in the 1960s. "I had made the choice not to go to an all-women's college and a lot of women in the College [for Women] were feeling that, de facto, we were in an all-women's college," Rodin said. The DP was also guilty of granting greater coverage to the MSG. During Rodin's term as WSGA president, only two pictures of her appeared in the DP, while the paper ran approximately 8 photos of her male counterpart, Tom Lang. In an article discussing the proposed merger that ran in August of 1965, the DP gave the MSG credit for the idea, ignoring the contributions of Rodin and the WSGA. Several days later, a DP editorial did the same. "The Men's Student Government effort to increase effectiveness was highlighted by a program for integration with the Women's Student Government Association," the editorial said. The underlying tone of most of the DP's articles carried a feeling that the men solely had the right to allow or reject a merger, while the women had little to do with the effort. Rodin explained last week that the DP's tone said volumes about the second-class feeling women on campus had. Rodin also clarified the origin of the government integration, explaining that it began as a request by the WSGA not the MSG. Meanwhile, the WSGA was making important gains in other areas, including the fight for increased representation and rights of undergraduate women. On October 21, the WSGA succeeded in obtaining three seats on the College Committee for Instruction, taking a large step toward equal representation on campus. The WSGA also abolished curfew for senior women and obtained the right for all women to enter male dormitories. In addition, the WSGA managed to obtain funding for Project Mississippi, a program to aid poor farmers, long before the initiative got through the MSG bureaucracy. Commenting on Project Mississippi, a November 5, 1965 DP editorial complimented the WSGA. "Over the years, the WSGA has regularly left its male counterpart behind in the dust," the editorial said. "There can be no doubting which student government has the guts around here and which is more in tune with the times. Perhaps we are not ready for co-ed government after all, when the men are so badly outclassed." Rodin's term as president ended in early 1966 with the final fulfillment of the central tenet of her campaign platform -- co-ed student government. Although the committee structures were almost completely integrated, the two assemblies remained separate in meetings and procedure. On January 28, 1966, less than a month before WSGA elections and two weeks after a new MSG president, Chip Block, was elected in the first-ever popular vote for the position, Rodin and Block announced that a gradual merger of the governing bodies themselves would take place at a joint meeting of the two groups three days later. "We have worked together in co-ed committees and the possibility of a merger has been discussed," Rodin said at the time. "It is time to do something." Block and Rodin mentioned several issues which had to be resolved before the merger could fully occur. Forming one electoral procedure out of two disparate processes proved problematic for the student leaders. The men were elected representatives based on a slate system, while the women had no parties but instead elected class representatives. Therefore an issue arose regarding what to do with the MSG's traditional and deeply entrenched party system. The question of proportional representation arose as well, since there were fewer women than men at the University at the time. In addition, the MSG structured meetings around Robert's Rules of Parliamentary Procedure, while the women held meetings in an informal conference style. Because of those difficulties, the merger was postponed a week. The following day's DP editorial expressed bitter disappointment in the delay. "We have heard talk? but each time it is bogged down," the editorial read. "We hope that a way will be found to insure the rights of women without giving them more representation than they deserve on a percentage basis. "The leadership of both groups is to be commended for a beginning and both groups are to be kept under scrutiny to insure that this is not just another false start," it continued. A week later, the two governments voted to formalize the merger. On February 7, 1966, the MSG and the WSGA formed a Provisional Student Government with Chip Block as its president and Rodin as its executive vice president. The groups' former vice presidents became the vice presidents for men's and women's affairs. Each group retained distinct treasurers, while the secretaries divided up their responsibilities. Committee structures retained the co-ed status originally instituted in 1964-65 but women did begin to chair some of them. The Judiciary Committees were not combined. Future governments were to consist of 45 percent women and 55 percent men. Rodin said last week that although she and Tom Lang were committed to the idea and "pulled other people along," there were pockets of resistance to the formation of a single government. "There were clear moments of resistance among the men," Rodin said. "And even among the women there were people who felt they were better represented by a women's government." Rodin explained that this feeling among women stemmed from the unequal representation of women in the new government. But Rodin said this was fair because the men comprised at least 20 percent more of the student body. Students felt the provisional government worked well, according to Rodin. Given its success, permanent elections were held the following year. Eventually, the male dominance in representation eroded as greater percentages of women entered the University each year. But the evolution of student government did not end there. Additional metamorphoses occured. And eventually, the University's student government became the present-day Undergraduate Assembly system. And change is still on the horizon. As each government structure reforms to meet the needs of a changing constituency, new proposals for reform arise yearly, from the A-1 University Senate proposal that failed last year to rumored new reforms that may be on the ballot during the upcoming election this spring.