1 Both Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta considered themselves honorary and professional organizations in education. Criterion for selection was initially based on grade point average, although throughout the history of both organizations, various criteria also existed for membership. At most universities where Phi Delta Kappa existed, so, too, did Pi Lambda Theta. Until the mid 1950s, both single-sex organizations cornered the university market for education honoraries, leaving the coeducational Kappa Delta Pi to organize on the less-prestigious normal colleges. This division of the higher education market was the means by which the single-sex organizations created class distinctions among educators; it also perpetuated the gender division within the education field, whereby male and female administrators and college professors had separate organizations. Laurie Moses Hines, “Creating Distinctions Among Educators: Separatism, Women's Professionalization, and the Competition for Educational Authority; A History of Pi Lambda Theta, 1910–1974,” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2000), chapters 1 and 2. All Pi Lambda Theta materials are located at the Pi Lambda Theta International Offices, Bloomington, Indiana [hereafter referred to as PLT]. The records housed there include materials from defunct chapters who sent the entirety of their chapter's records to the PLT offices rather than submit them to their university archives. On Pi Lambda Theta's perception of its relationship to Phi Delta Theta see, “History of Pi Lambda Theta and Phi Delta Kappa,” (c. December 1973). This document was included as part of a packet of background material sent to Pi Lambda Theta chapters with a mail ballot regarding the admission of men into the association. See Mary Margaret Carney to Chapter Presidents, December 28, 1973, Folder “Ballots for Admitting Men to Membership, December 1973,” File “Board Meeting Minutes,” PLT.Google Scholar

2 Blount, Jackie M. Destined to Rule the Schools: Women and the Superintendent, 1873–1995 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).Google Scholar

3 Estelle Freedman developed the notion of separatism as a strategy for women's advancement; see Freedman, “Separatism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Feminism, 1870–1930,” Feminist Studies 5 (Fall 1979): 512–29. See also Jill K. Conway, “Perspectives on the History of Women's Education in the United States,” History of Education Quarterly 14:1 (Spring 1974): 1–12.Google Scholar

4 Dorothy, A. Sibley to Alice Hayden, H. April 12, 1970, Miriam M. Bryan to Alice H. Hayden, April 28, 1970, in folder “August 1970,” file “Board Meeting Minutes”; Report on Letters from past national officers and conference with Dr. Baxter, in Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, April 7–10, 1972, PLT.Google Scholar

5 Walton, Andrea “Deja Vu All Over Again?: Mission, Markets, and Coeducation at Columbia University,“ Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada, April 18–24, 1999.Google Scholar

6 Chamberlain, Mariam K. ed., Women in Academe: Progress and Prospects, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988), 172–73, 275–89, and Jo Freeman, “Women on the Move: Roots of Revolt” (pp. 1–36), Bernice Sandler, “A Little Help from Our Government: WEAL and Contract Compliance” (pp. 439–42), Kay Klotzburger, “Political Action by Academic Women” (pp. 359–92), and Margaret L. Rumbarger, “Internal Remedies for Sex Discrimination in Colleges and Universities” (pp. 425–38), all in Alice S. Rossi and Ann Calderwood, eds., Academic Women on the Move (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1973). Consciousness-raising and the celebration of femaleness were tactics pursued by cultural feminists, and inherent tensions existed between cultural feminists and the institutionally-oriented liberal feminists who pursued equality and integration into the mainstream through legislative and legal strategies. Radical feminists, whose stripe did not show up in Pi Lambda Theta, rejected the mainstream and desired to dismantle the sex-class system completely. More than likely, women who adhered to the radical feminist perspective would not have joined associations like Pi Lambda Theta because such organizations supported the class-based system. For a discussion of these distinctions within feminism and the women's movement, see Alice Echols, Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1961–1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 3–18.Google Scholar

7 Echols, Daring to Be Bad. Google Scholar

8 Cole, Robert W. Jr., “Years of Trial, Years of Promise: The Modern Era of Phi Delta Kappa,” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1981), 139–140; Howard M. Soule, Report of Activities of Chapters in Relation to Women in PDK, Meeting of the Board of Directors, February 11–14, 1971; Soule, Report of Phi Delta Kappa Director, Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Biennial Council, December 27–30, 1971; and Report on Women in Phi Delta Kappa—Columbia and New York Area Chapters, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971. All organizational records for Phi Delta Kappa are located at the International Offices of Phi Delta Kappa [hereafter PDK], Bloomington, Indiana.Google Scholar

9 Rose, Report on Women and Phi Delta Kappa, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971, and Report on the Status of Events Relative to Membership for Women, Meeting of the Board of Directors, May 11–12, 1972, PDK. On student protest, especially the political movement for participatory democracy as embodied in Students for a Democratic Society, see James Miller, Democracy Is in the Streets (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987) and Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1987).Google Scholar

10 Meeting of the Board of Directors, March, 1969, and, on Pi Lambda Theta's feelings of needing “money badly,” see Miriam Bryan to Alice Hayden, April 28, 1970, folder “August 1970,” file “Board Meeting Minutes,” and Meeting of the Board of Directors, March 1969, August 14, 1969, and August 15–17, 1970, PLT; Lowell Rose, Report of Meeting Summary with Pi Lambda Theta, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971, PDK; Cole, “Years of Trial, Years of Promise,” 173–76, 185–86.Google Scholar

11 Report of Chapter Problems, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 8–10, 1968; Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 14–15, 1969; Arthur Coladarci to Richard W. Lyman, September 22, 1975, Wilman C. Shafer, Evaluation of (Upsilon) Chapter, February 21, 1975, and Marilyn Dobson to Georgia Adams, January 21, 1973, Upsilon Chapter (Stanford University) Correspondence file; Betsy K. Bennett to Jane Hill, July 6, 1970, Jean M. Alberti to Betsy K. Bennett, February 25, 1971, and Helen L. Wardenberg to Ruth G. Boynton, September 13, 1972, Mu Chapter (Cornell University) Correspondence file; and Stephen Romine to Carmen Johnson, November 16, 1962, Alpha Rho (University of Colorado) file, all in PLT.Google Scholar

12 The Harvard Chapter officer's statement about minority group exclusion was a clear reference to Phi Delta Kappa's treatment of non-caucasians, which, as a group, were excluded from membership in the organization until 1942. See “Council to Consider Admission of Women,” News, Notes, and Quotes [hereafter referred to as NN&Q], 16 (November-December 1971): 1–3; “PDK Debates Admission of Women,” NN&Q 14 (March 1970); Phi Delta Kappa staff to Board of Directors, (u.d., c. July-August 1971), PDK; “Women and Phi Delta Kappa,” NN&Q 16 (January/February 1972): 2; and Julius W. Lee, Jr., “The History of Phi Delta Kappa, 1906–1954,” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1954), 111–141.Google Scholar

13 Phi Delta Kappa staff to Board of Directors, (u.d., c. July-August 1971), PDK; “PDK Debates Admission of Women,” NN&Q 14 (March 1970); “Women and Phi Delta Kappa,” “Council Rejects Membership for Women,” and Lowell Rose, “The Executive Secretary Says: There Is No Satisfactory Alternative,” NN&Q 16 (January/February 1972).Google Scholar

14 Report on Women in PDK- Follow Up, Meeting of the Board of Directors, February 4–6, 1972, PDK, and “Cornell Chapter Suspended,” NN&Q 17 (September-October 1972).Google Scholar

15 Rose, Lowell Report on Women and Phi Delta Kappa, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971; Len E. Bunger to Lowell Rose, July 7, 1971, amended to the Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971; Report of the Status of Events Relative to Membership for Women, Meeting of the Board of Directors, May 11–12, 1972 and LeBaron C. Moseby, Jr. open letter to Harvard PDK Members, April 4, 1972, and D. Bernard Hoenig to Lowell Rose, April 24, 1972, both amended to Report of the Status of Events Relative to Membership for Women; Arthur L. Berkey to Members of the Phi Delta Kappa Executive Board, July 21, 1972, amended to the Report of the Status of Cornell Chapter, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 11–13, 1972, PDK.Google Scholar

16 Georgia, S. Adams to Ruth Schneider, S. November 6, 1972; Ruth S. Schneider to Georgia S. Adams, June 20, 1973; Notes from telephone conversation between Pi Lambda Theta officer (unnamed) and Claire Pelton, October 31, 1972; and Ruth S. Schneider to Richard W. Lyman, September 22, 1975, Upsilon (Stanford University) Chapter correspondence file, PLT. The issue of prestige continued to plague Pi Lambda Theta even after 1975. See Mary C. Bucholtz to Diane Gregory, November 3, 1980, Alpha Zeta (Northwestern University) Chapter correspondence file, PLT. On admitting members of the opposite sex and cooperative projects, see Georgia S. Adams, Report on Meeting with Phi Delta Kappa Representative, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 11–15, 1972; Miriam Bryan, Report of the Editor for 1971–1972; Mary Margaret Carney to Board of Directors, February 7, 1974, in file “April 1974 Minutes”; and Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 19, 1974, PLT.Google Scholar

17 Sandler, “A Little Help from Our Government,“ 439–444.Google Scholar

18 Peterson, Iver “Columbia is Given Job Bias Warning,“ New York Times [hereafter NYT], 25 February 1972, p. 17, col. 1; Peterson, “Split in Faculty Seen at Columbia,” NYT, 27 February 1972, p. 25, col. 1; Robben W. Fleming, “The Implementation of Affirmative Action Programs,” in Women in Higher Education, eds. W. Todd Furniss and Patricia Albjerg Graham (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1974), 224–28.Google Scholar

19 Powers, M.F. “End Discrimination to Hold onto Federal Funding,“ College Management 6 (May 1971): 24–26, and Bernice Sandler, “Discrimination is immoral, illegal, and, offenders find, costly,” College and University Business 56 (February 1974): 27–30.Google Scholar

20 Mary Margaret Carney to Chapter Presidents, December 28, 1973, folder “PLT Mail Ballot-1973,” in file “Board Meeting Minutes”; Tentative Program for Assuring Women their Right to Membership in Phi Delta Kappa, c. July 1972, amended to Georgia Adams, Report on Possible Situations Facing Pi Lambda Theta, July 26, 1972, PLT; Lowell Rose, Report on Women and Phi Delta Kappa, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 27–29, 1971, PDK; Mary Salpukas, “Well over 30 and Successful, They Still Join the Younger Women's Fight,” NYT, 18 December 1972, p. 51, col. 1.Google Scholar

21 Ruth, S. Schneider to Georgia Adams, June 20, 1973, Upsilon (Stanford University) Chapter correspondence file, PLT, and Cole, “Years of Trial, Years of Promise,” 173, 178.Google Scholar

22 Cole, “Years of Trial, Years of Promise,“ p. 179; Phi Delta Kappa, A Factual Report: Women and Phi Delta Kappa, August 1972; “Official Explanation of Rules on Sex Bias” [excerpts from Housing, Education, and Welfare documents], NYT, 19 June 1974, p. 32, col. 3; “Exemption on Bias Forecast,” NYT, 17 November 1974, p. 33, col. 1; “$33 Billion Fund Bill Approved,” NYT, 27 November 1974, p. 14, col. 7; and “Education Group Suspends Harvard Unit with Women,” NYT, 19 March 1973, p. 25, col. 5.Google Scholar

23 Suppes, Patrick to Adams, Georgia S. July 6, 1973, as amended to agenda of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1973, PLT, and “AERA Council Breaks with PDK, Pi Lambda Theta, Over Discrimination,” Educational Researcher 2 (August 1973): 16.Google Scholar

24 “Focus of the 1973 Biennial Council,” Pi Lambda Theta Newsletter 18 (Fall 1973): 16.Google Scholar

25 Rose, Lowell “The Executive Secretary Says: A Compromise Upon Which Reasonable Men and Women Can Agree,“ NN&Q 18 (September 1973): 1, and Mary M. Lepper to Ted Gordon, July 11, 1973, in Meeting of the Board of Directors, July 20–22, 1973, PDK. Lepper was the director of the Higher Education Division, Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.Google Scholar

26 Rose, “A Compromise Upon Which Reasonable Men and Women Can Agree,“ NN&Q 18 (September 1973): 1.Google Scholar

27 Report of the Relationship between Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta: Notes from Discussion, April 8, 1973, Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 6–9, 1973, PLT.Google Scholar

28 Georgia Adams to Members of the Board of Directors, July 26, 1972 and Adams, Possible Situations Facing Pi Lambda Theta (confidential proposals), Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 11–15, 1972, PLT. Phi Delta Kappa earlier, in 1969, issued an internal report, known as the Morphett Report, on the relationships between and potential merger with other honorary and professional organizations in education, including Pi Lambda Theta, Kappa Delta Pi, and Delta Kappa Gamma. Phi Delta Kappa pursued the closest working relationship with Pi Lambda Theta. Copies of the Morphett Report do not exist. See Meeting of the Board of Directors, March 1969, PLT.Google Scholar

29 Georgia Adams to Members of the Board of Directors, July 26, 1972 and Adams, Possible Situations Facing Pi Lambda Theta (confidential proposals), Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 11–15, 1972, PLT.Google Scholar

30 Ibid.Google Scholar

31 Report on Future Directions and Chapter Discussion Materials on Future Directions, Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 6–9, 1973, PLT.Google Scholar

32 File on Future Directions, Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1973, and Report of Relationship Between Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 6–9, 1973, PLT.Google Scholar

33 Manuscript notes from a telephone conversation between a (unidentified) Pi Lambda Theta national officer and Claire Pelton, October 31, 1972, Upsilon Chapter (Stanford University) correspondence file, PLT, and Meeting of the Board of Directors, July 20–22, 1973, PDK.Google Scholar

34 Moseby, LeBaron C. Jr. to Lowell Rose, November 7, 1972, Meeting of the Board of Directors, January 25–29, 1972, and Phi Delta Kappa, A Factual Report: Women and Phi Delta Kappa, August 1972, PDK. See also Rose, “A Compromise Upon Which Reasonable Men and Women Can Agree,” NN&Q 18 (September 1973): 1.Google Scholar

35 Information Clearing House of the Ad Hoc Committee to Assure Women Their Right To Membership in Phi Delta Kappa (typescript, University of Michigan School of Education, n.d. [1972?]).Google Scholar

36 Soule, Howard M. “Council Approves Membership Amendment, Board Hopes for Ratification,“ NN&Q 18 (November-December 1973): 1, and Cole, “Years of Trial, Years of Promise,” 178–82.Google Scholar

37 Adams, Georgia Report of the President, 1971–1973, Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Biennial Council, August 12–16, 1973, PLT, emphasis in original.Google Scholar

38 Phi Delta Kappa's Biennial Council was held in October 1973, and Pi Lambda Theta mailed the ballots to chapters in December, with the tallying of ballots done on March 1, 1974.Google Scholar

39 Author's tally of Results of Mail Ballots, March 1, 1974, and Comments on Ballots of Article II, 2.11 of The Bylaws of Pi Lambda Theta, folder “Ballots for Admitting Men to Membership—December 1973,” Board Meeting Minutes, PLT, emphasis in original.Google Scholar

40 Comments on Ballots of Article II, 2.11 of The Bylaws of Pi Lambda Theta, folder “Ballots for Admitting Men to Membership)—December 1973,” Board Meeting Minutes, PLT.Google Scholar

41 Echols, Daring to Be Bad, pp. 12–16; Freedman, “Separatism as Strategy”; and Conway, “Perspectives on the History of Women's Education in the United States.”Google Scholar

42 For an example of the emphasis on women, see the Winter 1973–74 and Spring 1974 (vol. 52) and the Spring 1975 (vol. 53) issues of Educational Horizons. Google Scholar

43 Directions, Future Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1973; Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 7–10, 1972; and Memoradum, Jean M. Alberti to Maybelle C. Chong, July 10, 1972, amended to the agenda of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1972, PLT; for an example of local chapter initiatives on women, see Delta (University of Pittsburgh) chapter, Pi Lambda Theta (classification number RG 55/16/8/5-B), Box 1, File folder 1, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar

44 On the chilly campus climate, see The Campus Climate Revisited: Chilly for Women Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Students (Washington, D.C.: Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges, 1986); Bernice Sandler, Lisa A. Silverberg, and Roberta M. Hall, The Chilly Classroom Climate: A Guide to Improve the Education of Women (Washington, D.C.: National Association for Women in Education, 1996); and Memorandum, Marguerite Manning to Jean Alberti and Mary Margaret Carney, November 23, 1977, Alpha Epsilon (Teachers College, Columbia University) Chapter correspondence file, PLT.Google Scholar

45 This dual mandate embodied the tensions of the women's right movement: the liberal feminist aim of integration (Pi Lambda Theta's becoming coeducational) and the cultural feminist aim of consciousness raising and revaluing the dominant male culture.Google Scholar

46 Hines, Moses “Creating Distinctions Among Educators,“ chapters 1 and 2.Google Scholar

47 Sandler, Bernice “Equity for Women in Higher Education,“ Current Issues in Higher Education 27 (1972): 78–90.Google Scholar

48 Harrison, Cynthia On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945–1968 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 215–221. Echols, Daring to be Bad, 6–7.Google Scholar