May Day Protest

Student demonstrators holding protest signs during the May Day Breakfast, 1967.

Students question Administration policy during May Breakfast on May 17, 1967.

 While protests against Vietnam and for Civil Rights continued to grow in the Boston Area, Simmons College students also protested a concern specific to Simmons—the departure of nearly 10% of College faculty members in 1967. A Silent Demonstration of approximately 800 students was held during the 1967 May Day Breakfast. Students also sent a set of questions issued to the College administration, wanting to know the College’s position on retaining faculty through competitive salaries and other recognition.

Simmons students gathered to express their concern about Simmons College Administration policies concerning faculty retention, 1967.

Student demonstrators holding protest signs during May Day Breakfast, 1967.

An op-ed from that period praises the “well-informed actively concerned participants” and draws a distinction between the image of the College—which the editorial writer felt had been tarnished—and the image of the student, which the writer felt had been enhanced, writing that the student body’s “latent years of apathy” were being shaken off by an “active Student Government and an interested and aware faculty.”