Acting on the wishes of the student body, members of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate have urged that male and female undergraduate diplomas be uniformly designated. Since 1963, the School of Arts and Sciences has given all women's diplomas the Jackson College title and all men's the College of Liberal Arts title.
Now, a number of students feel the time has come to do away with the differentiation. TCU Senate Vice President Melissa Carson said that senators were told by several female students that making diplomas uniform is an important issue. "I was personally approached by many women who wanted the change," she said.
Ultimately, the decision lies in the hands of the School of Arts and Sciences, in conjunction with the Provost's Office. Now that the TCU Senate has vocalized its complaints to the school and the provost, a decision should follow. Carson said that the School of Arts and Sciences has been "very helpful."
Many women helped to bring the movement together, according to Carson. The issue was discussed at several Women's Union meetings. Most of the women she has spoken to, along with the Senate, share the opinion that all the diplomas should look alike.
Last week, however, according to Associate Provost Liz Canny, Carson presented the Provost's office with a diploma design on behalf of the Senate that would have included the Arts and Sciences name as well as the Jackson College name on diplomas for both men and women. She then changed her presentation after polling hundreds of students on the academic quad to make the diplomas' wordings the same as they were prior to 1963.
Canny agreed with the proposed change. "It would make more sense to have 'Tufts College' on all the diplomas," she said.
Alumni Relations officer Jennifer Cassidy, an alumna herself, did not feel very strongly against the change despite the fact that her diploma has the "Jackson College" title on it. She said that the Association of Tufts Alumnae (ATA) was created as "an outlet for women alumnae to show that they are proud to be a woman and an alumna."
Furthermore, Cassidy said that having "Tufts" printed on one's diploma would give its bearer greater "credence" than "Jackson" would in the professional world. She said the Jackson name is not as well-known as certain female institutions such as Radcliffe, which most people recognize as the female institution within Harvard.
Still, the name holds significance to those who attended Jackson College in the mid-1960s. At the time the school was established in 1910, few higher education opportunities existed for women, and being accepted to Jackson meant more to women than acceptance at Tufts did to men.
Jackson College once had its own separate student activities, student government, and dean. Until 1917, female graduates of the school received diplomas with the "Jackson College" identification. The label was removed, but Tufts females in the early 1960s lobbied to have it reinstated.
Sunny Breed, a 1966 alumna, said that women who attended Jackson with her "were very proud of their identity in Jackson College." When asked what her feelings were on a possible removal of the "Jackson College" identity from the diploma, Breed said, "What the diploma says is totally up to the people now... obviously, attitudes have changed."
