page_title: Goucher College
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Goucher College / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Goucher's historical seal circa 1923
context_page_description: Goucher College is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. The college was chartered in 1885 following a conference in Baltimore led by local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, including John F. Goucher, for whom the school is named. It was formerly a women's college until becoming coeducational in 1986. As of 2020, the school had around 1,480 undergraduates studying in 33 majors and six interdisciplinary fields and 700 graduate students. Goucher also grants professional certificates in areas including writing and education and offers a postbaccalaureate premedical program.
  Originally situated in central Baltimore, the school established its current campus in 1953 on a 287-acre plot of land in downtown Towson. A member of the Landmark Conference, Goucher competes in the NCAA's Division III in sports including lacrosse, tennis, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and horseback riding. Goucher is among the few colleges in the United States to require a study abroad of all undergraduates and was one of forty institutions profiled in Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope.
context_section_description: During President Goucher's tenure, the college's enrollment grew but it also suffered financial deficits. In 1904, the college became the second in Maryland to establish a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, after Johns Hopkins University. Goucher stepped down in 1908 to resume his international missionary work but remained involved with the school as president emeritus until his death in 1922. In 1910, the school was renamed Goucher College in his honor. 
  
  In 1913, the college inaugurated its fourth president, William W. Guth, who oversaw the construction of several new residence halls and a successful million-dollar fundraising campaign. 
   Around this time, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, whose daughter Jessie was a Goucher alumna, expressed support for the college's fundraising efforts in correspondences with the administration, writing in March 1913, "It would, indeed, be... evidence that our great educational public does not fully understand its own interests if an institution which has served with such faithfulness... in the cause of woman's [sic] education should be allowed to break up for the lack of money." By 1914, Goucher was one of six "Class I" colleges for women in the U.S.
  In 1921, Goucher purchased 421 acres of land in nearby Towson that had belonged to the estate of a prominent Baltimore family for $150,000, some of which was later resold to provide funding for construction and other expenses. The move from Baltimore to the Towson suburbs was completed in 1953 after having been delayed by financial difficulties imposed by the Great Depression and World War II. 
   Before 1950, Goucher hosted nearly a dozen sorority chapters on campus including Kappa Kappa Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta, Gamma Phi Beta, and Pi Beta Phi. The school has since ceased recognizing an on-campus Greek system. Goucher became coeducational in 1986 when the board of trustees voted to admit men, citing declining enrollment and reduced national interest by women in single-sex colleges. Although the decision was at first controversial among some students and alumnae, it was followed by increased enrollment and sustained support from the school's donor base, with Goucher's endowment growing nearly five-fold from $45 million in 1986. Then-president Rhoda M. Dorsey, who also initially resisted the proposal, presided over the transition.
  Goucher's former Baltimore campus is now known as Old Goucher. The school no longer maintains any affiliation with the property since its sale. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Many of its original structures, characterized by Romanesque influences, have been preserved and re-purposed for commercial, public, and residential use. The school's Towson campus was added to the historic register in 2007.
caption: The college's original seal
exif: {}