![]() ![]() In recalling their undergraduate years, many of MacKay's respondents, like Dontopoulos, glow. When set in the context of a series of very personal histories such as this, though, reality is truly subjective. But, as graduate Charoula Dontopoulos ('61) points out, the "then unique all-women's community, the romantic setting, the wonderful women teachers, the amazing new knowledge contained in the myriad of books at the library - all that gave me the freedom and inspiration to find out who I truly was." ![]() Indeed, as these stories intimate, there's a sort of irony in the whole notion of so many individuals coming to honest terms with an "outlaw" sexual identity in the social cradle of Vassar - a place which, in some ways, has traditionally been as Byzantine and outmoded in structure and stricture as any upper-class American academic institution. Many of these people came out during their undergraduate years - sometimes coddled, sometimes injured by the ambivalent arms of this legendary institution (which, until the 1970s, was an all-women's school). MacKay, herself a 1949 Vassar graduate, has compiled a brisk, readable collection of stories from homosexual alumni about their college experiences. If you approach it unburdened by too much intellectual expectation, Anne MacKay's collection "Wolf Girls at Vassar" is good popular history and a lot of fun. ![]()
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