The American Studies department congratulates Gillian Dauer '22 for her award-winning outstanding senior thesis. Titled “‘Good and Useful Women’: The Rutgers Female College and Nineteenth-Century Women’s Higher Education Reform,” Dauer excavated the largely unknown history of Rutgers Female College. Founded as the Rutgers Female Institute in 1838, the Rutgers Female College was the first institution for women’s higher education in New York City and boasted a rigorous liberal arts education. In describing its rise and fall, Dauer charted not only the arguments in favor in offering women access to higher education but also the difficulty facing female students and the institutions that would serve them in the nineteenth century. Dauer is currently pursuing an M.S.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs at Indiana University-Bloomington.
