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Fifty years of female students
The DMS class of 1962, including Valerie Leval.
It was not so long ago that the student bodies of Dartmouth's various schools were exclusively male. Then came 1960 and the arrival at Dartmouth Medical School of Valerie Leval (now Dr. Valerie Leval Graham). That fall marked the first admission of a woman to any Dartmouth program. More women soon followed, and today entering classes at DMS are typically divided fairly equally. To read more about Graham's experience at DMS, see the article about the 50th anniversary of her matriculation in the Fall 2010 issue of Dartmouth Medicine. And below, find out more about the history of women—both faculty and students—at DMS.
Read more
- A brief history of Emily Blackwell, who in 1852 applied for admission to DMS
- The story of Frances McCann, Ph.D., who in 1959 joined the Department of Microbiology to become one of the early female faculty members
- A look at the DMS Bulletin from 1957, revealing that DMS was, indeed, a man's world
- A note from a 1986 Dartmouth Medical School Alumni Magazine (Dartmouth Medicine's previous name) revealing that exactly half of that year's entering class were women
- A note from the Winter 1987-88 issue of the magazine noting that that year's entering class had even more women than men
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