Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990 TAG: 9005080499
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOROTHY G. BLANEY
DATELINE: ALLENTOWN, PA. LENGTH: Medium
While change never seems to come fast enough for those who are denied opportunity, a great distance has been covered, particularly in the last 20 years. The legal obstacles to full participation of women in education and in the workplace have been cleared away.
So I shared the students' exuberance at being at a woman's college. I was excited by the role a college for women could play in the '90s as an institution in the mainstream of social change.
Although only 3 percent of the top jobs in the country are currently held by women, by the year 2000 that percentage is projected to increase almost sevenfold, to 20 percent. Now at 56.8 million, women in the labor force will become the majority by the end of the 1990s. Our capacity to educate women to excel will have significant impact upon the country's economy and culture.
The 90-plus colleges for women in America have a history of producing leaders.
There are 40 times as many graduates of women's colleges on Fortune 1000 boards, and 30 times as many in the Congress, as women who were graduated from coeducational institutions. In the past 20 years, women's colleges have shown a larger percentage of students majoring in the "hard subjects" - math and science - than coed institutions. Furthermore, women's college alumnae are now twice as likely as other women to go on to doctoral study.
After the civil-rights legislation, some people expected that all women's colleges, like the Marxist state, would wither away. In fact, since 1970 more than 130 have either admitted men or closed their doors. Two more, Chatham and Mills, are expected to admit men this spring.
Of the others, 65 percent have increased their enrollment in the past decade, many by 30 percent or more. Among private colleges generally, only 60 percent have increased their enrollment in the same period.
Those that have been successful, that have not gone the way of the buggy whip, have been transformed. Today, they have four major characteristics:
Building upon their liberal-arts tradition, most have expanded cross-disciplinary study to assure that students develop the capacity to integrate their learning with their value systems. At Cedar Crest, all juniors are required to take a team-taught course on women, values, technology and society. Issues in biology and philosophy are cast in the context of personal choices.
They offer great diversity in the learning environment. With rare exceptions, students at women's colleges can enroll for courses at neighboring coeducational colleges and participate with men in class as frequently as they wish.
At my own college, students register for courses at five area institutions, including Lehigh and Lafayette. They have access to libraries and participate in social activities on the other campuses as well, while living in a community with other women.
The emphasis is still on the individual and her learning style in a small class setting. The largest women's college has 2,500 students, and most have fewer than half that number. Students know each other and have opportunities to work closely with faculty in class and outside.
Because all key positions at the school - from stage manager of a theater group to president of the student government - are held by women, students get practice in solving problems and setting courses of action. The experience helps strengthen women's identity, their sense of themselves.
More than ever before, we are aware today of a confluence of two great forces. One works to draw all peoples together, encompassing their diversity and integrating their strengths. The other force, flourishing beside it, is the force for identity, for family, for national group, for gender, for particular religious and cultural heritages.
As we enter the decade in which women will become the majority in an integrated workplace and move into senior positions across all sectors, women's colleges have a new role as institutions of social change.
While the legal obstacles to full participation have been overturned by the courts, attitudinal, social and practical blocks remain. Women and men both need to respect and understand their differences as well as their shared entitlement.
In identifying, celebrating and strengthening women's distinctive selves and their historical roles in the family and culture, as well as their new opportunity, colleges for women can graduate leaders who will have both an ecumenical spirit and a fully developed belief in themselves.
by CNB