The first female students arrived on the Queen’s campus in 1869. By 1878, all Arts courses were opened to women, and Queen’s awarded its first degrees to women in 1884.
Over the next century, women at Queen’s were almost exclusively enrolled in Arts programs. After 1941, they were also enrolled in nursing. By the 1976-77 school year, women formed a majority (51%) of Queen’s undergraduates, but at that time, still made up only 11% of the Applied Science student population.
Given their sparse numbers in the late 19th century, Queen’s women looked to one another for support. In 1889, they formed the Levana Society as their own association on campus, at a time when women still felt themselves to be on unofficial probation at the university and provided them with a refuge from the often-critical eyes of male students.
This society, named after the Roman goddess of the rising sun, was the official association of women students at Queen's from its founding in 1888 until 1967, when it merged with the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS).
The Levana constitution dedicated the society “to serve as a bond of union between all the women of the university.” Levana would promote the cultural, literary, athletic, and social betterment of women on campus.
Levana members held meetings in the Red Room of Kingston Hall, organized lectures and tea dances, and sponsored debates on topical questions. Its annual formal dance became a fixture on campus, as did its basketball, ice hockey, and field hockey teams.
The best known rituals of the society was an annual candle lighting ceremony held early each fall in Grant Hall. With great secrecy, the new students were led into the hall to be greeted by the sophomores. The Levana president then inducted the newcomers into the Society, involving a transfer of gowns to – and lighting of candles held by – the new students.
The Society promoted the general interests of women at Queen's and occasionally entered the political arena - as it did in 1933, for example, when it formed the victorious Arts-Levana-Theology coalition in the Alma Mater Society election to defeat students who wanted to permit fraternities and sororities at the university.
As women gained a more equal footing at the university, the need for an overarching women's society diminished until its members finally decided, in 1967, to merge with ASUS - to which the majority of its members already belonged - since there were few women outside of the Faculty of Arts and Science. Other changes, like co-educational residences, followed.
Today, Levana exists as the Levana Gender Advocacy Centre, an anti-oppressive safe space dedicated to fighting systems of oppression and advocating for empowerment for those of any gender identity.