Room(s): Yale School of Architecture Graduate Women Alums, 1942- celebrates the complex history of the school’s alums. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with two events: the 50th anniversary of undergraduate coeducation at Yale College (beginning in 1969) and the 150th anniversary of the first women students at the university (in the School of Fine Arts, 1869). In 1916 Yale University established the Department of Architecture in the School of Fine Arts. Nearly thirty years later, following a drop in enrollment coinciding with World War II, the department, under the leadership of Everett V. Meeks, admitted women for the first time in 1942. 

Beginning with Elizabeth (Betsey) Mackay Ranney (*B.Arch.' 46), the first known woman to graduate from the Yale School of Architecture’s professional program, the show highlights the work of more than five hundred alums over the school’s almost eighty-year history of coeducation. Curated by Dr. Jessica Varner (M.Arch. ‘08, M.E.D.' 14), assisted by Mary Carole Overholt (M.E.D.' 21) and Limy Fabiana Rocha (M.Arch.' 20), the collection recognizes the significant but often overlooked accomplishments of alums and includes materials from institutional­­­ archives, as well as personal records, conversations, emails, and work acquired from graduates in an open call.

By establishing an institutional collection and archive, the exhibition asks, "What happens when we make room?" More than seven hundred pieces—from patent drawings of “The Boater,” by Marion O'Brien Donovan (*B.Arch.' 58), to Mountain Moving Day, a vinyl record by Harriet Cohen (M.C.P.' 66) and the New Haven Women's Liberation Rock Band—highlight work by Yale women graduates as students, architects, urban and landscape designers, academics, politicians, inventors, engineers, artists, developers, planners, lawyers, activists, and citizens. The exhibition features the work of three alums—(Noel) Phyllis Birkby (*B.Arch.' 66), Toni Nathaniel Harp (M.E.D.' 77), and Constance Marguerite Adams (M.Arch.' 90). Viewed collectively, the works speak to making room—to build, bear, create, care, learn, rest, redefine, witness, compromise, and thrive.