FOUR COLLEGE CONFERENCE: THE FORERUNNER OF THE PRESTIGIOUS SEVEN SISTERS CONFERENCE

The Four College Conference was an historic association of four of America’s leading and most prestigious women’s colleges. Its members represented the upper echelon of selective liberal arts colleges for women in the Northeastern region and had established themselves as academic powerhouses and the preferred choice for young Brahmin and Knickerbocker women from America’s great political and industrial dynasties. The Conference existed for over a decade from its foundation in 1915 until it was expanded to include several other renowned women-only colleges setting the stage for what would become the Seven Sisters.

ABOUT

The association was established at the behest of Vassar College’s then President Henry Noble MacCracken. In 1915, he invited his counterparts at Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College to attend a conference at which progressing standards in women’s education was the agenda. MacCracken considered Vassar College to be the leading example of a women’s college in the country and that only a few peer institutions came close to delivering the quality of education that his college offered. He enjoyed an informal relationship with the presidents of those other colleges, and it was they who he reasoned would be the best placed to join him in advancing his mission. That mission being improving the quality of education available to young women, ensuring that education was equally as good as that provided by the very best men’s institutions and expanding access opportunities for young women to attend such a college. These four colleges were also amongst the oldest women’s institutions with Mount Holyoke having been founded in 1837, Vassar in 1861, Wellesley in 1870 and Smith in 1871. They had come to be regarded as the female equivalent to the Big Three (Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University) or Big Four (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Union College) or the Little Big Three (Amherst College, Middlebury College, and Williams College).

The first meeting of the four presidents would take place in 1916 under the title of the “Permanent Conference of Four Colleges”. The conference would meet annually thereafter and continued to do so until 1926. The four presidents had increasingly come to recognise that there was a significant hurdle in the delivery of an education and course of instruction akin to that provided by the men’s colleges that they considered to be their peers and that was a matter of money.

The oldest of the men’s colleges that had established themselves as the upper tier of academic excellence in the tertiary sector included the likes of Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Rutgers University (which would later become the state university of New Jersey and no longer would be a peer school of these other institutions), University of Pennsylvania, Union College, Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Cornell University, Swarthmore College, Brown University, Colgate University, Middlebury College, and Williams College amongst others. Many of these schools had a long heritage, some dating back to long before the American Revolution and the foundation of the Republic. This ancient lineage and successive generations of graduates who would occupy positions of power, wealth and influence, had allowed these schools to become the beneficiaries of sizable donations which supported the accumulation of significant endowments and funding grants.

The comparatively new women’s colleges were unable to match the financial might of their male-only peers and society had not progressed such that even the most successful female graduates of these colleges could be expected to amass the wealth and opportunities that were available to their male counterparts.

The Four College Conference presidents deigned to improve the financial wherewithal of their respective colleges and to make the case for greater funding for women’s colleges generally. They deliberated over the idea of creating a common fund to cover the costs of hiring and developing the best faculty and staff.

Inviting the presidents of Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, and Radcliffe College to join the association the Four College Conference became the Seven College Conference in 1926 with its first conference taking place the following year (and every year since). In those early years, it became clear to the participating schools that achieving this common fund would prove difficult due to the substantial differences in the resources of women’s colleges compared to their peer men’s only schools and that attracting talent could not be achieved directly under this initiative. They concluded that substantial fundraising efforts were essential to their ongoing viability. They would also need to press the case for public support for women’s colleges and undertake the necessary groundwork to make the case for public funding and grant awards.

The Seven College Conference would change its name to the “Seven Sisters” soon after its formation, referencing The Pleiades, a Greek myth telling the story of the seven sister goddesses: Alcyone, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, Sterope and Taygete, a nod to the status of the seven colleges, their relationship to one another and the classic foundation of their liberal arts programmes. The group would also begin to discuss a host of other matters of common interest, including the development of Greek life, Greek games, administration, admissions approaches, academic curriculum and so forth. Despite that the conference has since reduced to an effective membership of six, one of which is co-educational, it retains the Seven Sisters name.

Thus the Four College Conference lives on in the form of Seven Sisters conference, with the original four members still continuing to participate in it. The Seven Sisters host an annual conference with hosting duties rotating amongst the members. In recent years, the group has actively pursued initiatives to expand the diversity of its student bodies and to better accommodate applicants from minority backgrounds and those who identify as women. These measures have allowed the schools to better attract academically gifted candidates and to raise their reputation as highly selective liberal arts colleges.

Moreover, and harkening back to the conference’s initial foundation when the Four College Conference was first expanded, years of intensive fundraising efforts have ensured that these colleges have substantial endowments allowing them to offer greater access to scholarship funding. Smith and Wellesley, in particular, have endowments that dwarf those of the other Seven Sisters. As such, these two schools have been able to become the most selective and have, as such, come to be viewed as especially academically prestigious with Mount Holyoke still being viewed as the most socially exclusive. In 1969, Vassar College voted to begin admitting male students following the abandonment of a proposed merger with Yale University. The first male students arrived in 1970. The other three colleges continue to operate as women-only colleges, at least at undergraduate level.

The four founding colleges are all members of The Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges, the Oberlin Group of College Libraries, the 12 College Exchange Program, and the Consortium on Financing Higher Education. Mount Holyoke College, Vassar College and Wellesley College are members of the Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges and the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges. Both Mount Holyoke and Smith College are members of the Five College Consortium and, alongside Wellesley, are members of the Women’s College Coalition. Mount Holyoke is also a member of the Council of Independent Colleges. Wellesley and Vassar are members of the Eastern College Consortium. Additionally, Wellesley is a member of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education and the 568 Presidents Group. Smith and Vassar are members of Selective Liberal Arts Consortium. All four are recognised as being amongst the so-called “Little Ivies” or “Hidden Ivies” – revered institutions that offer an undergraduate degree equivalent to or better than that offered by the Ivy League universities. The four colleges are part of the wider “Ivy Plus” community and participate in various Ivy Plus initiatives under the Ivy Plus consortium banner, including the Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium (IPSC) and the Ivy Plus Writing Consortium (IPWC).

We welcome contributions from members of the Four College Conference community. Perhaps you attended or are currently attending one of these celebrated colleges? Please do share your experience with us in the comments section below. It really helps prospective applicants make the right decision.