Page 29 - Priorities #63- Winter 2016

The bumps in the road, however, extended beyond the dress code and girls leaving campus with boys. The concern about fa- cilities reared its head in the form of the girls’ locker room. A small and tired space, it made the girls feel like “second class citizens” according to Michael Farris ‘95. Of course this was un- intentional and by 1995, a new locker room had been built. Of note, those of us who enjoyed that new facility did so blissfully unaware of what the sparkling fixtures or spacious footprint had replaced.
But amidst the occasional growing pains was a blossom- ing student body. The young women were embracing their pioneer status, and still do to this day. Diana Kincaid ‘95, shared, “Being one of the first girls is still really cool. I love that I was the very first female to take Father Martin’s photog- raphy class.” The young men were also changing in the pres- ence of their new classmates. Mr. Farris experienced Priory as an all-boys school during middle school and remembers well the shift:
“The existing boys had to suddenly change from ‘uncaring tough guys,’ to ‘easy-going and likeable,’ in order not to get re- jected by the girls at first-glance... There were far fewer skir- mishes in the halls.” Personal hygiene also enjoyed a boost, with the 1991-1992 yearbook noting, “Guys who had brushed their teeth once or twice in the past year suddenly showed up with pearly whites every day.”
While it can be assumed those cleaner teeth and fewer hallway altercations were a welcomed reprieve, there were other notable changes that stick out for Mr. Trudelle and Father Martin.
Mr. Trudelle says, “I started getting homework and quiz- zes with flower drawings and heart dots over the lowercase ‘i’s’—hadn’t seen that in our all-boys days... And the singing improved in chapel.”
For Father Martin, the addition of women’s sports pro- vided his moment of clarity. “Of course we knew that there were girls on campus, we could see that. But it felt real when I went to a girls volleyball game. All of the girls had to be on the team, we had so few. Seeing them on the court in their Pri- ory jerseys, that’s when I realized, ‘Wow, we really are coed.”
The transition to co-education could have gone a number of ways, but the students embraced the duty of ushering in this new Priory era. The same yearbook editorial that joked about oral hygiene closed with this telling commentary, “There is an unspoken, yet universal, understanding that all students have a responsibility to do their best to make co-ed- ucation at the Priory work.”
The pioneering young women broke ground for us girls that were to fol- low, giving us the luxury of step- ping onto a campus primed to ed- ucate and nurture young men and young women alike. But it is this sense of pride and commitment to Priory that made the transition successful, allowing Priory to
begin again.
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