New Era for College : Woman Elected Student Body Leader at Claremont McKenna for 1st Time

Christine Wight knows her college has a reputation for being a “macho school.”

But she’s hoping that her election as Claremont McKenna College’s first woman student body president will change all that.

Wight, an economics major, won 54.2% of the 560 votes cast during elections last month at this small private college, formerly Claremont Men’s College. Also elected Feb. 20 were three female class presidents: Ingrid Morris, 20, senior; Laura Lulejian , 20, junior, and Beth Curtis, 19, sophomore. The freshman class elects its officers in the fall.

“What makes me really happy is that gender never came up in the election,” said Wight, a 21-year-old junior. “I do think, though, that this will dispel some of the negative image that people have of the school.

“I think this school has gotten a bad rap for being a macho school. But the years that I’ve been here, I’ve never felt it, and I don’t think it’s true.”

Claremont McKenna, one of the six Claremont Colleges, was founded in 1946; it did not admit women until 1976. Wight said the school’s image is based primarily on its past practice of excluding women.

“The climate was very different then,” agreed Yvette Rodick, a 1986 graduate who is now director of internship and community relations for the college. She also is adviser for the school’s Women’s Forum, an informal group that meets twice a month to discuss issues of concern to women. “The environment is much more supportive now,” she said.

Kathy Ormseth, 31, was part of the first class to attend Claremont McKenna after it opened its doors to women. She said she will never forget what it was like to be one of 60 women in the midst of 751 men.

“I remember the first night I went to the dining hall for dinner,” Ormseth recalled. “I sat down and looked around and I was the only woman in the hall surrounded by 300 men. . . . It was quite a feeling.

“The school definitely had a masculine flavor to it,” Ormseth said. “They were not used to having women around. For example, there were no bathtubs in the school (dormitories), only group showers, which most women are not used to.”

Ormseth, now vice president of Union Bank’s San Jose Real Estate Loan Center, said it would have been “unlikely for a woman to be student body president at that time.”

“Society has changed a lot since I’ve graduated, and the fact the school has chosen its first female president is a reflection of that change,” Ormseth said.

The four newly elected presidents say they too are part of a changing era. “It has taken a long time before we reached this point, but progress takes time,” Morris said. “It’s finally here--people are beginning to be judged as individuals, not as males or females.”