Objects in the Rearview Mirror: A Social History of Coeducation under the Dome Paperback – August 30, 2022

For a thorough and unvarnished account of Notre Dame’s journey into coeducation, you should get this book now.The author has done extensive and meticulous research on all the intricacies of this historic decision and its ramifications.Additionally, as a social history, the book takes the author’s own introspective stories and complements them with contributions from a diverse group of over 150, of both sexes, who also lived the experience.The heart of the book is the author’s introduction, and desire, to attend ND long before that was even thought to be a possibility.But the soul of the book is her honesty and vulnerability in her willingness to expose her own weaknesses and trials to her readers.I found myself laughing out loud at situations caused by her innocence and naïveté.Or tearing up at the evocative and poignant tales both humiliating and frightening that she shares so openly.If you want to know how it felt to be living through this exciting and sometimes traumatic time, you can read it here through the words of those who lived and experienced it.You won’t regret taking the journey with them.

“Objects in the Rearview Mirror” is a well researched, well written personal history of the first fives years of coeducation at Notre Dame. The book covers the successes, and struggles of the 365 pioneering young women (out of an undergraduate population of 6,722) who lived through the transition from an all male university to a coed university. The book is filled with personal reflections of many of the trailblazing women. Many of which are brutally honest self-reflections.

This is a TERRIFIC book for anyone interested in the growing pains of coeducation, and all who genuinely want to understand the history and culture of Notre Dame. Written over 20 years, it contains numerous first-person interviews, and shares perspectives of both the female and male students, as well as ND officials. It is a very candid and accurate recollection of the awkward, awesome, weird, and sublime growth of a great university and its youth during the early 1970s.