Despite accounting for a majority of college students in the United States, women fill a minority of professional leadership positions often associated with collegiate success. This suggests that educational access alone does not guarantee equitable societal outcomes after graduation, but rather remains shaped by a patriarchal social order. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of educational experience on perceptions of social influence and opportunity by identifying the historical precedents for persistent issues of equity within higher education and potential solutions. This narrative case study is guided by three research questions: (Q1) How did institutional curriculum, policies, and procedures explicitly demonstrate expectations for women and gender, particularly in relation to power and opportunity? (Q2) How did social climate and experiences on campus and within the broader community implicitly shape understandings of opportunity for women students? (Q3) How can modern practitioners learn from and implement strategies for educational equity based on models that did, or perhaps did not, work in the past? Utilizing archival records including administrative papers, student publications, and personal writings from a State normal school in the American West, this qualitative dissertation looks at student experiences at a traditionally women-majority space in the 19th and 20th centuries through an interpretivist, postmodern feminist lens. It finds that an emphasis on the pragmatic needs of local community over traditional societal expectations, combined with innovative approaches to educational practice, fostered educational and professional opportunities for women that defied norms of the time. Understanding such strategies can assist contemporary higher education practitioners and policymakers to utilize similar approaches in order to foster a more equitable educational landscape for all students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]