"When I think of it now, I can't believe that we stood for it. there was a tiny little room where they crammed the Radcliffe women, and only the women going for honors could use the whole library," Sullivan says.

Wolfe says that she feels joint-education was "quite liberating" compared to the previous system. Most Radcliffe alumnae seem to agree, even though they may realize today that equality was not yet complete.

"I used to wonder if they marked us easier, because we got higher marks than the men did, but I didn't feel that our education wasn't taken seriously," Sullivan says.

The Great Return

Just as World War II brought women into Harvard classrooms, military programs and the post-war G.I. Bill increased diversity at what had been a primarily elite, local institution.

The lack of available college students made admissions much less rigorous than they had been before.

"It was fantastically easy to get [in]," says Frost, who says he had friends from other schools who came to Harvard for an admissions interview and then were accepted to the College the next day.

The wartime programs and, to an even greater extent, the G.I. Bill put a Harvard education within reach for thousands of students from various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

"Quite a few people were sent to Harvard by the Navy who were not admitted to Harvard through the usual admissions process," O'Donnell says. "The G.I. Bill really changed Harvard forever. It much more democratic and diverse."

Dr. Harold L. May '47, one of a handful of blacks in the class of 1947 , says the G.I. Bill did much to increase the minority contingent.

"After the war, the integration of the races became more complete, and I'm sure the G.I. Bill had an effect," he notes.

The G.I. Bill was one of the factors that brought an unprecedented number of students--almost 3,000 undergraduates at Harvard alone--to the College the spring term of 1946 in what became known as the "Great Return.:

The huge influx of students was mostly composed of older men recently discharged from the services--from classes as far back as the class of 1943--reaching for their last chance at a degree.

The Navy still occupied Eliot and Kirkland houses in 1946, University dormitories overflowed with returning students. Even with at least one extra person in each suite, students were forced to set up beds in the gymnasium of the Indoor Athletic Facilities (now the Malkin Athletic Center).

Housing for married students was especially in short supply because many of the returning students had wed in their years away from Cambridge. Many were turned away by the Harvard Housing Office and resorted to hotels and hastily erected structures by the Charles.