The name Seven Sisters is a reference to the Greek myth of the Pleiades, goddesses immortalized as stars in the sky:[1] Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope.
(Cornell, one of the eight Ivy League schools, has been open to accepting women since its founding, and admitted Jennie Spencer in 1870).
The consortium was founded in 1915 when Vassar President Henry Noble MacCracken called Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke together “to deliver women opportunities for higher education that would improve the quality of life for the human family and that would put them on an equal footing with men in a democracy that was about to offer them the vote.”[3] The success of this Four College Conference led to the decision to establish a larger and more formal group in 1926 during a second conference held at Bryn Mawr College.
That year Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe were added and the group gained the name “Seven Sisters” after the Pleiades.
[5] The Seven Sisters in the early 20th century would meet to discuss various matters including self-government, teaching, and undergraduate issues.
At the top of the list was securing more money to increase the endowments of the college in order to match the pay rates for the professors at elite male universities.
[7] From 1982 to 2019, a Seven Sisters Athletic Championship was held between the colleges with events in basketball, crew, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, squash, swimming and diving, tennis and volleyball.
The organization hosts events, both professional and social, sends out a newsletter, provides career related information, and other resources.
[10][11] Due the transition of Vassar to coeducational and admission of transgender and nonbinary students at other colleges, some have started to refer to the Seven Sisters as the Seven Siblings group.
[15] The colleges also offered broader opportunities in academia to women, hiring many female faculty members and administrators.
Despite having joint admissions, women's degrees would continue to bear both Harvard and Radcliffe seals until 1999, when the merger of the two schools was completed.
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was created following the merger in 1999, and today offers non-degree instruction and executive education programs.
[20] Barnard president Debora Spar said in 2012 that "the relationship is admittedly a complicated one, a unique one and one that may take a few sentences to explain to the outside community".
Barnard has an independent faculty (subject to Columbia University tenure approval) and board of trustees.
Mount Holyoke engaged in a lengthy debate under the presidency of David Truman over the issue of coeducation.
On November 6, 1971, "after reviewing an exhaustive study on coeducation, the board of trustees decided unanimously that Mount Holyoke should remain a women's college, and a group of faculty was charged with recommending curricular changes that would support the decision.