1636 to l830s -- Several dozen colleges founded, none with provisions for training women; similar pattern in Europe

1833 -- Oberlin College opened and shortly thereafter began enrolling women, becoming the1st co-educational college in United States

1836 -- Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke Female Seminary to prepare young women for the foreign missions; school not designated a college until 1880s

1836 -- Georgia Female College chartered

1839 -- Georgia Female College opened as a women’s college

1850s-1860s -- Several midwestern and western state universities open with provisions for co-education (e.g., Michigan, California, Wisconsin)

1861 -- Vassar College founded  in Poughkeepsie, NY, exclusively for women; opened in 1865

1865 -- Cornell University opened as a co-educational institution

1870 -- Hunter College opened in NYC as public women’s college, paralleling CCNY

1875 -- Smith College opened in Northampton, Massachusetts, for women

1875 -- Wellesley College opened in Wellesley, Massachusetts, for women

1879 -- Harvard "Annex" opened in Cambridge, affiliated with Harvard (later Radcliffe)

1879 -- Columbia President F.A.P.Barnard calls for admission of women to Columbia College;
             repeats call in the next two Annual Reports ; opposed by Professor John W. Burgess and
             majority of trustees

1880 -- Cornell awarded first American PhD to a woman

1880s -- More than 30% of all undergraduate enrollments were women

1884 -- Columbia College introduces a separate program for providing off-campus instruction for
              women

1888 -- Bryn Mawr College founded for women, included plans for graduate programs 
             comparable to those at Johns Hopkins University

1888 -- Mt. Holyoke Seminary becomes Mount Holyoke College

1889 -- Barnard College founded in NYC, adjacent to Columbia University; Annie Nathan Meyer
             a  prime mover; Columbia program for women students terminated.

1893 -- Barnard College becomes loosely affiliated with Columbia; provisions for Barnard renting
             Columbia faculty

1894 -- Barnard names its first Dean, Emily James Smith; resigns in 1900 after marrying and becoming
             pregnant

1900 -- Columbia and Barnard sign formal affiliation agreement allowing for exchange of faculty and
             some X-registration; marks beginning of a separate Barnard Faculty and distinctive curriculum

1900 -- Of approximately 1700 PhDs awarded by American universities since the first in 1861, 
             approximately 100 were awarded to women (6%)

1901-- Laura Drake Gill becomes 2nd Dean of Barnard (to 1907)

1908 - 10 --Barnard presided over by Acting Dean, Professor of English, William Tenney Brewster

1910 --Barnard trustees named its 3rd Dean, Virginia Gildersteeve (BC ‘99); who held position 
           until 1945

1920s -- A majority of the Barnard faculty were women, although a majority of the professorial 
              positions held by men

1920s -- As Columbia College gradually increased its commitment to a "core" curriculum, Barnard 
               emphasized disciplinary majors and more electives in first two years

1927 -- Barnard and six other eastern women’s colleges (Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe, 
            Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke) organize as "Seven Sisters" to promote private women’s colleges

1930s -- More than 40% of all undergraduate enrollments were women

1941 -- Columbia appoints its first woman full professor, Marjorie Nicolson, previously a 
              Professor of English and Dean at Smith College

1947 -- Millicent Mcintosh named fourth head of Barnard College, the first to be designated 
             President (to 1964)

1950s --Majority of Seven Sisters Colleges with male presidents; Harvard, Yale and Princeton 
             appoint their first women full professors

1964 -- Rosemary Park becomes fifth head (2nd president)of Barnard upon 
             Millicent McIntosh’s retirement; presides until 1967, when leaves for UCLA

1967 -- Martha Peterson becomes 3rd president (6th head) of Barnard upon resignation of Rosemary 
             Park

1969 -- Yale and Princeton accepted their first women undergraduates

1970 -- Radcliffe ceases to exist as an instruction-giving entity; single admissions policy established 
            at Harvard for men and women

1970 --  Vassar College decides to admit men, ending its 110 years as a women's college

1970s -- Most  traditional men’s colleges decide to admit women, among them Amherst,
               Bowdoin, Williams, Hamilton, Dartmouth

1973 -- Columbia-Barnard Trustees Agreement on financing of X-registration and a central role 
             for Columbia in the tenuring of Barnard Faculty

1974 -- Women constituted 64% of the Barnard faculty; but remained underrepresented in 
             the full-professor rank

1975 -- Martha Peterson resigned as president of Barnard to become President of Beloit College;
             Dean of the Brown Faculty,  Jacqueline Mattfeld,  elected 4th Barnard president

1980  -- June -- Jacqueline Mattfeld resigned as president of Barnard; then Trustee and attorney 
              Ellen Futter (BC ‘69) named acting-president

              July -- Ellen V. Futter (BC 1971), member of Barnard Board of Trustees, appointed acting president 
              of Barnard

1982 -- Ellen V. Futter named 5th president of Barnard; at 32, the youngest college president in 
            country 

1983 -- Columbia College decided to admit women to its Class of 1987; decision ends Barnard’s
              exclusive right to enroll women undergraduates

1988 -- Barnard College opens Centennial (later Sulzberger) Hall, making the college 
            "fully residential" for the first time

1990 --More than half the Americans receiving PhDs in the humanities and social sciences from
            American universities are women

1993 --Ellen Futter resigns as Barnard president to become President of the American Museum 
            of Natural History; College Counsel and VP, Kathryn Rodgers named acting president

1994 -- Bryn Mawr dean and anthropologist Judith Shapiro named 6th president of Barnard College