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Running head: MONA LISA SMILE

Mona Lisa Smile: The Portrayal of a Women’s College in the Early 1950’s

Brian J. Patchcoski

College Student Affairs Program

The Pennsylvania State University

3 November, 2009

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Mona Lisa Smile: The Portrayal of a Women’s College in the Early 1950’s

The movie, Mona Lisa Smile, portrays Wellesley College in the early 1950’s as one of

the distinguished leaders in the education of women. Through exploring the lives of women at

the institution, recognizing the challenges present to faculty, and analyzing the repressive mores

encountered within the college community, the producers create an accurate, yet inaccurate

portrayal of women’s institutions in the 1950’s. Through deconstructing specific environments

within the film, one can recognize a variety of institutional and student outcomes resulting from

the environment. Through exploring the institutional culture portrayed at Wellesley College in

the 1950’s in association with literature focused on women’s institutions, one can recognize an

evolution of beliefs, traditions, and outcomes within the last sixty years in the education of

women. Through the movie, Mona Lisa Smile, the producers attempt to provide a basic

understanding of the lives of women attending Wellesley College in the early 1950’s, but

through comparison to scholarly literature, neglect to provide a true representation of institutions

committed to the education of women.

To begin, the movie, Mona Lisa Smile, explores the experience of Katherine Ann Watson

who has accepted a position teaching art history in 1953 at Wellesley College, a prestigious

women’s college located in Maine. Watson, a free-spirited graduate of UCLA, has a passion not

only for art but also for her students. Throughout the film, the students all seem to be biding their

time, waiting to find the right man to marry. Watson recognizes the potential within her students

and challenges them to reach beyond the repressive mores and traditions of generations past.

Although a strong bond forms between Watson and her students, her views are incompatible

with the dominant culture of the college. The challenges encountered by Watson and her students

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recognize the influence of environments in achieving student outcomes individually and

institutionally.

Recognizing the influence of environments on student outcomes, the film, Mona Lisa

Smile, portrays several environmental representations of Wellesley that directly and indirectly

facilitates the outcomes expected of women during the early 1950’s. Deconstructing environment

into the physical environment, the human aggregate, and the constructed environment,

Wellesley, as a prestigious women’s institution, embodies traditions and mores that effect the

overall perception of the institution (Strange & Banning, 2001). Within the movie, traditions

endowed from former generations create obstacles toward growth individually and

institutionally. As a new faculty person, Watson challenges the “old guard” in their conception of

education, but continuously faces new obstacles that prevent growth. The maintenance and

promulgation of tradition is an outcome continuously recognized in the actions of faculty and

administration at Wellesley. Continuing to recognize the effect of environment on outcomes,

Watson encounters the “prospect of marriage” as another formal outcome of the institutional

environment. Through course offerings, institutional culture, and student expectations, the

women, as characterized within Mona Lisa Smile, are determined to marry and create a family as

an outcome of their educational experience at Wellesley.

The words and actions of President Jocelyn Carr embody the traditions found and

portrayed at Wellesley. As president of the prestigious women’s institution, Carr works to

construct and maintain an environment focused on tradition. Several scenes within the film

recognize her effort to maintain institutional integrity and tradition. As a women’s institution in

the 1950’s, Wellesley did not want to associate or promote ideals of sexual promiscuity. In an

effort to maintain these ideals, the institution removed one professor directly from her teaching

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post after discussing contraceptive techniques. Besides taboo subjects, teaching practices at

Wellesley were to follow the strictest of traditions as acknowledged through the actions of

President Carr. Carr, reprimanding Watson’s teaching style, states, “...at Wellesley, we are

traditionalists.” Watson attempted to challenge her students beyond traditional techniques seen at

the institution, but she receives institutional reprimand for her actions, inclusive of guidelines she

would need to follow if she decided to return to teach at Wellesley the following year.

Besides the influence of tradition in class instruction and procedures, the environment at

Wellesley cultivates an expectation of marriage. Through course offerings, institutional culture,

and student expectations, the women all seem to be searching for the man that will “complete”

their lives. Courses offered on proper etiquette focus on how to be the best wife and maintain the

most effective and productive household. The instruction pertains to keeping ones’ husband

happy no matter the personal cost. Throughout the film, comments such as, “...no woman

chooses to live a life without a home,” perpetuates the belief that women should be married and

not pursue academia beyond their undergraduate degree. The amount of emphasis placed on

marriage perpetuates a strict binary for Wellesley graduates. Students believe they either need to

be married or go to graduate school, but do not seem to conceptualize that they could obtain both

if chosen. Although several students do obtain admission to graduate programs while at

Wellesley, the expected marriage outcome outweighs most decisions recognizing the

environmental press perpetuated at the institution in the 1950’s (Strange & Banning, 2001).

Although the movie takes place in the 1950’s, I believe the environment attempts to

recognize the emergence of factors relevant to institutions today dedicated to the education of

women. Acknowledging history, the female academy or seminary, the prototype of women’s

colleges, recognized that women could handle the intellectual rigor associated with college-level

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curriculum and therefore expand their roles in service to society (Komives & Woodard, 2003).

Through the active expansion of service roles, women were not just training to be wives as

portrayed within the film, but rather teachers and other professional positions.

Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) note the importance of women’s institutions in the

development of higher educational and occupational aspirations for women. Women’s colleges

are meant to expand a woman’s aspirations, rather than narrowly define them as portrayed in the

film. Through engagement within higher education, Kim and Alvarez (1995) recognized that

women’s colleges enable women to develop the self-confidence necessary to expand beyond

“traditional” roles, such as a homemaker or mother. Women’s colleges appear to create a climate

where women are encouraged to realize their potential and become involved in various facets of

campus life, yet the producers did not represent these ideals within the film (Kinzie, Thomas,

Palmer, Umbach, & Kuh, 2007). The only goals acknowledged by the women from the movie

were marriage and the importance of tradition. As institutions, women’s colleges have been seen

to foster an environment that fuels women’s understanding of self and others, but the producers

of the film seemed to portray the direct opposite (Kinzie et al., 2007).

Although the environment portrayed within the film seems contradictory to research, two

specific examples connect theory to scenes within the movie. Women’s colleges seem to create

classroom conditions in which women students are more likely to be actively engaged (Kinzie et

al., 2007). As seen within Watson’s art history class, the women are actively engaged in

answering questions, and as the class structure changes, Watson facilitates the inclusion of

critical thinking skills within her class seen through in-class dialogues and reflections. As

Komives and Woodard (2003) recognize, women’s colleges are seen to have positive effects on a

students’ overall academic development, cultural awareness, critical thinking ability, and foreign

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language skills. Through Watson’s class, the women were challenged in their development and

were provided opportunities for active engagement. Through these engagement opportunities, the

students began to form unique relationships with Watson not seen with other professors at the

institution. Unlike other professors, Watson engaged with students both in and outside the

classroom. Although not recognized as important and at points discouraged within the film,

faculty interactions are now seen as critically important to the holistic development of students at

women’s colleges. Smith (1990) recognized the importance of the faculty and administration to

the promotion of involvement at women’s colleges, while Kinzie et al. (2007) reiterated the

positive educational differences for women associated with faculty interactions. Acknowledging

the small presence of faculty-student interactions portrayed within the film, Watson seemed to be

laying a foundation for future practice at Wellesley.

Wellesley, as a women’s college, strives to provide an excellent liberal arts education for

women who will make a difference in the world (Wellesley College Quick Facts, 2009).

Although vastly different from its founding, Wellesley now encompasses a diversity of cultures,

backgrounds, and viewpoints unknown to the generations of women past. In transcending these

differences, the historic traditions of Wellesley recognize some of the major bonds uniting and

shaping the common identity, spirit and pride of Wellesley women (Wellesley College

Traditions, 2009). In order to represent these traditions, not only apparent at Wellesley, but those

traditions present at other women’s colleges, the producers should have incorporated more

aspects of the true liberal arts curriculum found at Wellesley. Within the movie, the environment

was representative of only two outcomes, marriage and the promotion of traditions. Rather than

recognizing only one specific discourse, art history, the movie could have explored more aspects

of the liberal arts education found at Wellesley and other women’s colleges in the 1950’s. The

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lives of the women who were determined to be married were depicted, but the lives of those

women who did not get married were not. It leaves the viewer with a question of what other

professions or opportunities were sought during the 1950’s if one chose not to marry or chose to

pursue further academic discourse after their undergraduate career.

Besides the need to expose other personal and professional aspirations, the human

aggregate within the movie lacked compositional diversity. The movie portrayed the students of

Wellesley as white, upper class women from affluent families, which in the 1950’s it may have

been, but long-standing policies at Wellesley toward financial need may have challenged these

notions depicted within the film. Wellesley prides itself on socio-economic diversity in large

part, due to the College’s need-blind admission policy. Students are accepted without

consideration of their ability to pay. Once admitted, those with demonstrated need receive

financial aid through a variety of services (Wellesley College Introduction, 2009).

Acknowledging Wellesley’s commitment to its students since its inception, the producers of the

film should have recognized the unique contributions of women’s institutions, as portrayed in

scholarly literature. Smith, Wolf, and Morrison (1995) recognized how students at women’s

colleges are more likely to perceive that their institutions care about them and their learning, care

about their civic involvement, and believe that their institutions care about multiculturalism

through their unique commitments to students, Wellesley’s financial policies being one of them.

The movie, Mona Lisa Smile, provides a unique examination of a 1950’s women’s college, but

neglects to include findings based on the outcomes of women’s institutions as a whole.

In conclusion, Mona Lisa Smile portrays Wellesley College in the early 1950’s as one of

the distinguished leaders in the education of women. Through exploring the lives of women at

the institution, recognizing the challenges present to faculty, and analyzing the repressive mores

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encountered within the college community, the producers create an accurate, yet inaccurate

portrayal of women’s institutions in the 1950’s. Through deconstructing specific environments

within the film, one can recognize a variety of institutional and student outcomes resulting from

the environment, especially in regard to institutional traditions and marriage. Through the movie,

Mona Lisa Smile, the producers attempt to provide a basic understanding of the lives of women

attending Wellesley College in the early 1950’s, but neglect to provide a true representation of

institutions committed to the education of women.

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References

Kim, M. & Alvarez, R. (1995). Women-only colleges: Some unanticipated consequences. The

Journal of Higher Education, 66(6), 641-668.

Kinzie, J., Thomas, A., Palmer, M., Umbach, P., & Kuh, G. (2007). Women students’ at

coeducational and women’s colleges: How do their experiences compare? Journal of

College Student Development, 48(2), 145-165.

Komives, S. R., & Woodard, D. B. (Eds.). (2003). Student services: A handbook for the

profession, fourth edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Newell, Mike. (Director). (2003). Mona lisa smile. [Motion Picture]. United States: Revolution

Studios and Columbia Pictures.

Pascarella, E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of

research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Smith, D. G. (1990). Women’s Colleges and Coed Colleges. The Journal of Higher Education,

61(2), 181-197.

Smith, D. G., Wolf, L. E., & Morrison, D. E. (1995). Paths to success: Factors related to the

impact of women’s colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 66(3), 245-266.

Strange, C.C. & Banning, J.H. (2001). Educating by design: Creating campus environments that

work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wellesley College. (2009). The college: An introduction. Retrieved November 1, 2009, from

http://www.wellesley.edu/Welcome/college.html.

Wellesley College. (2009). Quick facts about Wellesley College. Retrieved November 1, 2009,

from http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Media/facts.html.

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Wellesley College. (2009).Wellesley College traditions. Retrieved November 1, 2009, from

http://www.wellesley.edu/Welcome/Traditions/traditions.html.