School Books & Clubs

What Was It Like to be a Chevy Girl?

Most of the girls and young women who attended Chevy Chase College were boarders, so their everyday experience during the year combined academic classes with a variety of social activities organized by the school – clubs, sports, dances, and special events like excursions.  The academic curriculum changed over the decades, as school principals and presidents shaped the programs to reflect their educational philosophies.  The school catalogs, aimed primarily at the parents of Chevy students, describe the academic programs, while the yearbooks prepared for alumnae often list all the extra-curricular activities of the previous year.  Although many were clearly posed, photographs in these publications show the students participating in different activities.  We don’t have any “first hand” accounts by students until the very last years of the school’s operation, but the snapshots and souvenirs kept in scrapbooks give us a sense of what was important to Chevy Chase students in their day.  Press accounts in local newspapers help us follow announcements of faculty appointments and programs as well as notable social events.  Together, these documents chronicle the development of the school from its early days as a “finishing school” to its last decade as a fully accredited junior college.

 

 

 

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