The Coed Conundrum
To Dismay of Some, Va. Women's College Sees Enrolling Men as the Key to Survival

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 17, 2006

About a hundred students pitched tents and spread blankets under the magnolia trees of Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg this past week to protest the decision by the Board of Trustees to begin admitting men next fall -- and send a message across the country about education for women. They duct-taped signs to the elegant old brick: " 'Co-ed' is a four-letter word."

Every time another of the approximately 60 women's colleges admits men, one question resonates: Is single-sex education still relevant?

There were hundreds of women's colleges in the country during the 1960s, formed because women were excluded from places such as Harvard University and Dartmouth College, as well as to ensure that they had a challenging, supportive academic environment. But when men's schools began to admit women, the landscape changed dramatically, and many women's colleges closed or merged.

Change came slowly to Virginia, said Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, president of Sweet Briar College; its all-men's schools went coed later than most. "So the Southern women's colleges, particularly in Virginia, got a sort of 'bye' on this for 10 or 15 years," Muhlenfeld said. "Randolph-Macon Woman's College is probably the first of the major women's colleges in the South to make that move."

Randolph-Macon trustees told students that they needed to increase enrollment and stop spending from the endowment to stay financially viable; at a certain point, one steering committee member said, they realized that the school could not survive without a major change.

This past week, Sweet Briar, Hollins University in Roanoke, Mary Baldwin College in Staunton and Trinity University in the District all reaffirmed their commitment to being a women-only school.

Sweet Briar considered -- but rejected -- coeducation a couple of years ago.

A few women's colleges have such prestigious academics and healthy endowments that they are thriving.

Many have held on to traditions that have given them strong regional identities and a market niche, like some of the Virginia schools with their equestrian programs and distinctly Southern air.

And many have reinvented themselves. This year, Trinity University in the District, which once served mostly white, wealthy young women and has struggled with enrollment for many years, was surprised by a 54 percent spike in new students. This year's entering class, the largest since the 1960s, is mostly black, and more than 80 percent are the first in their families to go to college.

Trinity President Patricia A. McGuire said her school has invested to hold on to its single-sex mission, spending more on financial aid for much needier students, for example, and remediation. The school has helped pay for that by adding professional and part-time programs.

Since 2001, enrollment at women's schools has increased on average, driven particularly by part-time students, said Susan Lennon of the Women's College Coalition.

But Peter Sheldon, chairman of Randolph-Macon's physics department who worked on a committee that spent three years planning the school's future, said all of the women's colleges that the panel looked at -- other than those in the very top tier -- were underenrolled at the undergraduate level. Many were dependent on large financial aid packages used as incentives for students, especially Randolph-Macon, which he said had one of the highest tuition discounts in the country. And experts were saying that interest would continue to drop.

Lennon points to a recent national study that concluded that students gained more from their experience at women's colleges than those at coed schools and were more engaged.

And yet, national studies show that fewer than one in three women will consider an all-women school. Some think that they sound socially limiting; some don't see a need for them.

"For women's institutions, going coed is a matter of economic survival," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education.

That's what Hood College in Frederick concluded in 2002. Hood was losing students and spending its endowment at an alarming rate. This fall, it has 278 freshmen, a record-large class for the second fall in a row; before the switch to coed, it had 109.

All the finances, all the marketing, all the data pointed to one thing, Randolph-Macon's Sheldon said.

Finally, a member of the steering committee voiced it at a meeting in Washington, asking each person at the table one by one whether going coed was the only option. Everyone said yes, Sheldon said. Almost everyone started crying. They stood up and hugged.

They announced that the trustees would vote in September.

"I feel like my parents got divorced, and I'm 3 years old not knowing what to do," sophomore Audrey Hudgins said.

Alumnae swarmed the campus, marching with parasols to invoke the school's 115-year history. The decision came so quickly, many said. One group got a lawyer. People demanded answers about why a school with a $140 million endowment should be forced into such a wrenching choice. Others asked about conflicts of interest on the board as they learned that the school was considering selling assets such as the art collection and vowed to stop donating.

Interim President Ginger Worden said that officials have been open about the decision-making process and that any suggestion of financial improprieties is baseless.

Some students boycotted classes, campus jobs and the dining halls. They filled faculty parking spaces with their cars, some lettered "No boys allowed." And nearly 200 among the 700 students have filled out paperwork to transfer.

An admissions officer said that she has seen a huge surge of interest from both men and women at recruitment events. Some students, such as sophomore Amanda Weller, think it is time to change, and hundreds have chosen not to protest.

But hundreds of others met, some dragging air mattresses out to the lawn in front of Main Hall on a recent night, and talked about why going coed felt like such a betrayal. "We choose college based on the environment we want to live in, what's important to us," 19-year-old Mikaela Sheldt said. "We're looking for a place to start our lives."

She'll transfer, she said; they have lost her trust. "I feel like I don't have a home anymore."

It's nice to be at a place where you can concentrate on looking smart, not looking cute, Hudgins said; many said they like rolling into class in sweats and not feeling self-conscious about the questions they ask.

Hudgins said that all of the traditions that make Randolph-Macon such a close-knit, supportive, caring place will disappear. "What guy's going to make a daisy chain?" she asked. Or paint the post for the even-odd [school class] rivalry, or sing the school songs, or exchange gifts during ring week?

By the end of the week, the number of protesters was dwindling. About 4 a.m. one day, Worden, the interim president, awoke to realize that students were outside the president's house, serenading her with Randolph-Macon Woman's College songs.

She slipped outside and, although they were mad, they made space for her in the line, and they all sang together.