THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601290092
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HAMPDEN-SYDNEY LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Hampden-Sydney College, one of only two all-male, non-military colleges in the country, is considering going coed.
Last week, the faculty of the college met to discuss a resolution to begin admitting women in what one member described as a free-form debate.
A formal motion to have the faculty vote on the issue could come as early as February, and the outcome of the vote, while not binding, would then be passed along as a recommendation to the college's board of trustees.
``This would be an advisory thing, a `sense of the faculty' resolution,'' said Dr. Owen Norment, one of the authors of the resolution. ``I don't think it will come at the February meeting, but possibly in March or April.''
The college's 1995 self-study recommended that coeducation be discussed.
``I think it would be good for the college, that it would enrich the academic program, and that it would not detract from any of the things that the college holds dear,'' said Norment, a professor of religion.
More than 20 years ago, the faculty voted to admit women, but the college's board of trustees declined to make the change, a professor said.
Lt. Gen. Samuel V. Wilson, Hampden-Sydney's president, said the idea for coeducation at the private college, founded in 1776, is not new. The school is revisiting the issue to plan for the future, he said.
``Factors include the fact that enrollment is highly competitive and we have to work very hard to fill a class,'' Wilson said. ``Another thing is the VMI case and what it might portend for Hampden-Sydney.''
Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported, all-male military college in Lexington, is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling about whether it will be forced to admit women.
Wabash College in Indiana is the country's other non-military, all-male school.
Richard McClintock, the school's director of publications, said the majority of current board members seem to oppose coeducation.
The college's strategic planning committee is slated to study two options, including admitting women. The study is aimed at maintaining academic standards, said B.A. Klein, the college's media relations director.
The other option is to reduce enrollment to about 925 students, down from the current roll of about 950, Klein said.
``At the moment, the arrow is not pointing at either (option), but at making the present model work,'' Wilson said.
On Friday, the campus newspaper The Tiger quoted college provost and dean of the faculty J. Scott Colley as supporting coeducation. The newspaper's editor, however, Chris Stirewalt, said most students oppose the idea.
``If the board of trustees and our president are the men we think they are, this place won't go coed,'' he said. ``You don't come to Hampden-Sydney in spite of single-sex education, you come because of single-sex education.'' by CNB