Enrollment quota

On June 4, 1923, Trustee Boyd Lee Spahr asked that the Board of Trustees return to the 1917 discussion on a quota on female students. He argued that the number of female students should be limited to 125 beginning in the 1924-25 school year. Disagreeing with Spahr, Trustee Walter Sounders contended that the number of female students should be capped at 25% of total enrollment. The Board agreed with Sounders and the amended motion was carried.

On June 21, 1919, Trustee Boyd Lee Spahr moved that, "beginning with the academic year 1919-1920, the number of women students admitted to each incoming Freshman Class shall not exceed 25% of the total number of Freshman of the preceding year." Trustess L.W. Johnson and E.M. Biddle Jr. moved to amend the motion by waiting until the 1920-1921 school year. James H Morgan and Frank. B. Lynch moved to table the whole matter. After a vote, the resolution was tabled.

In an interview, Phoebe Jane Dixon (Class of 1940) comments on the quota system for women. When asked how women felt about the quota system, she answered that she did not know because they never talked about such topics.

On February 25, 1909 convened to discuss the system of coeducation and whether or not coeducation should be continued at Dickinson College. According to the committee, though men were ardently against coeducation at its onset in 1884, many male students are no longer "irritated" by the presence of women at Dickinson College. However, many male students and alumni were concerned that female students, "have won an altogether disproportionate share of College honors and prizes.

Dorothy F. Nagle (Class of 1946) describes the night before the servicemen left and the subsequent changes at Dickinson in an interview. In 1943, Dickinson hosted a large dance the night before "the fellows were going to be leaving" from the Carlisle Railroad Station. Students were permitted to remain out an hour later than normal curfew (twelve o' clock instead of eleven o' clock) and to rise early the next morning to see the men off.

The enrollments for the academic year following 1923 were expected to be large both for the College and Law school. It was expected that there would be 520 students at the College and that a large number of prospective students would be turned away.

Hence, early in July, an edict was issued stating that " NO more women students would be admitted to the college" (emphasis added). Nonetheless, applications from women aspiring to be admitted continued to arrive.

The Board of Trustees held their annual meeting every June. In 1923 they agreed to increase professors salaries very slightly and to endorse The Alumnus publication. Moreover, they approved the student body's request for the collection of a fee
from incoming students, which would be directed at supporting
activities such as the Athletic Association and Glee Clubs. This would
be of further use since it would reduce the number of people that
failed to show up when they were expected.