Bowdoin College
Library / George J. Mitchell Dept. of Special Collections & Archives

A Men’s College with Women? Over 50 Years of Women’s Leadership and Education at Bowdoin

  • According to the Orient
  • Research
  • Dear Future Bowdoin

Academics, Faculty, and Staff

Administrators

Administrators
Image 2 of 11

Bowdoin’s reputation as a wealthy, white men’s institution derives not just from its student body, but its workforce as well. This letter from the New England Minority Women Administrators invites Bowdoin’s minority women administrators to a conference at Mount Holyoke College to develop their professional skills and create camaraderie amongst other minority women administrators. The simple note of “none,” annotating “minority women administrators” and written by an unknown Bowdoin administrator, illustrates the extreme lack of representation at Bowdoin in 1976. Though Maine's population has diversified significantly since the 1970s, it is still one of the whitest states in the country. Without representation from minority groups, white narratives perpetuate systems of oppression and render minorities invisible.

New England Minority Women Administrators Organization president Brunetta R. Wolfmann to “President or Chief Campus Administrator,” letter, September 1976

Listen to excerpts of an interview with Cafferty, conducted by Skyler Walley ’12

Return to Exhibit Home Page | Explore Unforeseen Challenges

George J. Mitchell Department of
Special Collection & Archives
Bowdoin College Library
3000 College Station · Brunswick ME 04011-8421
207-725-3288 · Email Us