“How Sweet Briar Came Back from Financial Ruin and Proved Women’s Colleges Are Still Relevant”
“Today there are 42 all-female holdouts — including Sweet Briar, which was saved by the heroic efforts of impassioned alumnae. How are these institutions faring in the 21st century? Is there still a point in separating girls from boys in the classroom and on campus? Do the familiar tropes of horseback riding and lesbianism still apply? How are these campuses adapting to evolving definitions of gender and womanhood? Are these schools as rigorous as coed colleges? We did fieldwork at a representative sample — the five extant Seven Sisters; the second-oldest women’s college in America, which is a practical midwesterner; two southern charmers; and the Northwest’s only women’s college…
Sarah Swope teaches biology at Mills. In coed science classrooms, she says, “there’s a feeling that women are guests. We’re welcome, but we don’t want to be wrong, because then maybe we’ve proven that we really don’t belong. But at a women’s college the conversation is so much richer; we’re supposed to be here.” She is accompanied by about eight bio students. “Look around the room. This is what a room of biologists looks like.”
Emma, one of the student biologists, says, “I think there is this common misconception that the decision to attend an all-women’s college is rooted in some antiquated belief about keeping men and women physically and sexually separated. From an outside perspective I can see how it may seem very quaint, or conservative, when in actuality the very existence of women’s colleges is quite a progressive concept. In a patriarchal society, how radical is it to create space for women and maintain it on this scale?”…
Some closing thoughts: Spending time at these campuses was not what I had imagined. The richness and intimacy of these students’ experiences are enviable and inspiring. As a college-guidebook writer and a mother of college students, I have not heard so many students talk about appreciating their educations. These young people are studying bespoke curricula — with professors and deans collaborating to make their goals more attainable.”
I went to an all-girls school from 6th to 8th grade and I loved it, and it allowed me to grow in ways that I don’t think I would have at a co-ed middle school. In our 20s and post-college and all over the country/world, my class is still close and supportive and I feel certain kinds of confident just thinking about that environment.
People ask me about my transition to a co-ed high school, and I often surprise them when I say that my biggest surprise was that boys could learn too. My classmates and I really had this idea that boys were disruptive and loud and created drama and distractions, and that we had successful and comfortable classroom experiences because boys weren’t around. The other major, major difference was in PE; in high school, suddenly it was only the boys who were really allowed to exercise and push themselves to the point of sweating, while girls were supposed to jog around the edges and avoid getting in the way (except for the exceptional female athletes, who were permitted to join in the sports where they were known to excel).
Which is all to say that I found a lot of value in my “girls school” experience and, reading this article, I found myself missing it a lot.
