CoEd 50: 142 Years of Men at Groton

On the brisk Saturday morning of March 32nd, students, faculty, alumni, and former teachers gathered in the Campbell Performing Arts Center to celebrate a transformative milestone: the school’s 142nd year of Men. In place of morning Chapel, a secret society of Groton men met to finally recognize this unrecognized milestone.

“Why? Why did we let girls come to Groton? And you know what rhymes with ‘why?’ Y. As in, the Y chromosome, which girls don’t have.”

Men have undeniably influenced Groton, as they have the rest of the world since the invention of the plow. The decision to share this glory and let girls tread over the Circle was fraught with conflict, tears, and snot.

An impetus for coeducation was formal dances. “These boys—it’s like they don’t know they have hips,” said Chaddeus Rublee, a descendant of the first Groton alumnus, George Rublee ’86. “They move like Lego figures. Maybe girls will help open them up.” But the arrival of girls actually saw the end of formal dancing, which was swiftly replaced with the thump thump thump of the mosh pit.

Yet the tide had turned. There was no doubt about having girls on campus. “It’s quite astonishing: they are, somehow, fantastic students, athletes, and community leaders,” said one community member. “Though it’s no longer a priority, I’m sure one day, Super Stiff Salsa Night will be reinstated––hopefully by a mixed-gender group of students.”

Still, opposition against coeducation was fierce. To those unwilling, a community member said: “We will love them into submission. And when that fails, we will March Madness arm wrestle them until only one victor remains. He who winneth, decideth.”

The winner was former Headmaster Bill Polk ’58.

“Well, we want girls, duh,” he said. “Look at my forearm. Oh yeah, it’s big. It’s a big feminist forearm.”

Though men’s contributions to the inclusion of female students are frequently celebrated, we must acknowledge the individual contributions of the less-fair sex, if you catch my drift. Men single-handedly—without the help of half the world’s population—created the wheel, the telephone, the train, electricity, modern plumbing, calculus, and of course, the Patriarchy. The bust of Endicott Peabody erected near the Schoolroom reminds us all to channel our inner testosterone and fight against the inequality that we created.