Twenty-seven years ago this week, Dean Emeritus and former Dean of Admissions Eugene Wilson expressed unhappiness with coeducation proposals at Amherst. The College accepted males at the time, but Mount Holyoke and Smith students cross-registered.

Wilson expressed frustration in the wake of a Committee on Educational Policy report proposing that Amherst become coeducational: "There are 4,400 women and 1,300 men at three institutions here. If there were to be justice, can't we say that there should be 3,100 more men?"

He added that Amherst was coeducational, save for the lack of a residential coeducation element. Wilson mocked schools such as Dartmouth and Trinity that had successfully gone coed, remarking, "[those] colleges are all 'outposts of civilization.'" Wilson feared that an 800-500 male-to-female ratio would cause Amherst women to feel lonely.

"I'm not against women. When I see a 44-26-36, I don't see her as a sex object-it's just my way of testing my three-dimensional vision."