Remembering the co-ed experiment
Suzanna Bobadilla had always been a little curious about the trappings of her Pforzheimer House residence. Her sophomore year in Comstock Hall, she noticed small latches on each door frame that would prop a door open by a few inches. And then there were the floor-length, three-pane mirrors, like those at a department store, located at the end of the hall on every floor. As it turned out, the architectural oddities had a common thread: They were included with women in mind. In the early years of the House’s existence, its residents — female Radcliffe students — were asked to keep their doors ajar when entertaining gentlemen guests, and could use the mirrors to check themselves on their way out the door. “There’s this weird history of Pfoho that’s very gendered, that hadn’t been formally documented or written down,” Bobadilla said. So she and her classmate, Matt Chuchul, co-chair of Pfoho’s House...