The Long College for Women was a liberal arts, Presbyterian women's college associated with Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana between 1947 and 1978.
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Founding
Formally named Henry C. Long College for Women of Hanover College, Long College was the coordinate institution of Hanover, which was then a men's college. In the early 1900s, after multiple discussions of admitting female students, Hanover's Board of Trustees found itself mired in conflict over the issue of coeducation. By 1947, the trustees could still not agree on whether to fully admit women, who had up until that point only been allowed to take a limited number of courses at the college.
Following the death of longtime donor and major supporter of women's education Henry C. Long from Indianapolis – and especially after a subsequent donation of $750,000 from his estate – it was decided to open a coordinate institution. Long College was formally established on June 2, 1947. It was originally intended to last only ten years, but Hanover renewed the agreement in 1957 and extended the life of Long College.
The addition of Long College to Hanover College added more than $1 million USD to the joint college's annual budget. New buildings, including dining halls and dormitories, were constructed to assist the incoming women in particular.
Coordinate system
As with other coordinate women's institutions of the time, such as Pembroke College of Brown University and Newcomb College of Tulane University, students at Long shared most of the resources that were available to Hanover's male students. Although the colleges were technically separate in that all women received degrees from Long and all men received degrees from Hanover, the students shared the same campus, faculty, and even classes.
By the early 1960s, faced with the widespread coeducation movement of the decade, the Board of Trustees relented and allowed its female graduates to receive diplomas from Hanover instead of Long. Women were still not considered full Hanover students, however, and were required to register and attend as Long students.
Final years
During the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974, the Hanover campus was devastated by a tornado. With $10 million USD in damages, the college began to look at ways to save money. Due to the need to save money and the rise of coeducation, Long was fully merged into Hanover on November 2, 1978, ending the coordinate college system and making the new single college fully coeducational.
Alumnae
A notable alumna of Long College is American-Canadian writer Carol Shields, who was a member of Alpha Delta Pi while at the college. Shields used the coordinate college system of Long and Hanover as inspiration in several of her works, especially The Stone Diaries.