Page 909

SERVING THE CAUSE about 1,500 students. With his eye on the expected tidal wave of the 1960s, and convinced that adding a few more students each year brought in more revenue than the added expenditure it created, President Paul gave instructions which resulted in an increase from 1,400 students in the fall of 1956 to 1,766 in the fall of 1961. In December 1959 the board gave its blessing to what was happening by extending the upper limit to about 1,650 students. One of the tasks of the planning group which Arnold Hanson established in the fall of 1961 was to review the enrollment question and make a recommendation. The consensus which emerged from its extended deliberations was incorporated into "Gettysburg College: The Direction of Its Future." This 1964 document declared that enrollment should be maintained "for the next several years" at a level of about 1,800 students, a number which the board had approved in December 1963. Then it would be increased in "a controlled and orderly" manner to 2,250 by 1972-1973, but only if additional staff and facilities were first available to support further growth. Although fall enrollment continued to increase after 1961, exceeding 1,800 for the first time in 1962 and 1,900 in 1970 (fall enrollment did not drop below the latter figure through 1984-1985), there was little desire anywhere within the College to advance beyond the upper limit which the board had set in 1963. The 1972 long-range plan declared simply that "there are compelling reasons to maintain the current size (1850) of the College." By the early 1980s the question was not whether to increase enrollment, but rather whether to act in advance of the anticipated decrease in the number of qualified students Gettysburg could expect to recruit by reducing it by several hundred.201 Once the trustees voted to readmit women students in 1935, there was never any doubt in their minds that Gettysburg had become and would remain a coeducational institution, something which it had never previously been. In the context of the times, however, it is easy to understand why they would limit the number of women to those who could be accommodated in Huber and Stevens Halls and to commuters. The College was grateful to its coeds for helping to keep it in the black during the war and demonstrated its gratitude by adding a third dormitory for their use as the first postwar building. Shortly after Hanson Hall was occupied in 1950, the board reiterated its policy. The maximum number of women students would be equal to the number the three dormitories could accommodate plus commuters. 201Both Hanson and Glassick administrations regarded the 1,850 figure as an annual average, which meant that there had to be more than 1,900 students in the fall to yield an 1,850 average for the year. By the mid-1980s the College was using a Dana Foundation grant to devise ways to make it more competitive. 90