NEWS

Mary Baldwin goes coed to stay 'viable'

Laura Peters
lpeters@newsleader.com
A senior at the school, Dallana Alvarez follows the steps down hill carrying a beverage in either hand while on the campus of Mary Baldwin University on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016.

STAUNTON - It was more than a year ago that Mary Baldwin University was helping Sweet Briar College students to find a way to stay in an all-female college. Now, the university is paving the way to make the school coed.

When Sweet Briar was threatened with closure, Mary Baldwin stepped in to take those students who wanted to continue their education in an all-female environment through an expedited transfer program. Now, with Sweet Briar remaining open, Mary Baldwin has gone down a different path.

Starting in the fall of 2017, male students will be living on campus at Mary Baldwin University.

The decision has come down to the numbers — enrollment and money. To make the university be more desirable, they need to offer a wider variety of courses and that means allowing more men on campus. In the past five years, the university has seen a drop in enrollment from 1,787 students to 1,650.

"The fact is that the national trend for enrollment in women's colleges are that women's college enrollment is declining. This is something that we have experienced," said Crista Cabe, vice president for communication, marketing and public affairs.

Although this year, the freshman class is 20 percent higher this year than last year.

Having men on campus isn't something new, Cabe said.

"Men have been in classes on the main campus in undergraduate classes for decades," Cabe said. "We started the adult degree program in 1977 and although many students do that online or in the region, it has always been true that we have some students that come in through that program who are in classes on the main campus. Having men in classes is nothing new."

The big difference will be men living on campus. Cabe said they are working on maintaining a safe environment for those who are concerned with the change. There will be one residential hall that will be coed — Tullidge Residence Hall, which will serve University College students. Men will be on one hall and women on another, Cabe said.

"We think this is still a really viable way to preserve the experience of the women's college within the coeducational university, which we already had," she said.

With this move Virginia will soon have only two all-female colleges in the state — Hollins University and Sweet Briar — along with a single all-male college, Hampden-Sydney College. Most recently, Randolph-Macon became coed in 2007 and was renamed Randolph College.

"We took a path very different from Randolph or Sweet Briar, sort of a third way," Cabe said. "You have to think about how a women's college can stay viable in the 21st century and the current economic and higher education landscape."

Both schools have a larger endowment than Mary Baldwin, Cabe said. Sweet Briar chose to stay solely undergraduate, whereas Randolph chose to go co-ed after seeing national trends.

Brenau University in Georgia went through a transition in the 1970s similar to Mary Baldwin's. Originally an all-female college, Brenau now has a Women's College, co-ed undergraduate, graduate, adult studies and a total of five college sites.

Men don't live on the main campus entirely, according to David Morrison, vice president of communications and publications. There are small apartments available to men who take courses on the Gainesville campus, where the women's college is located.

A walks past a banner displayed on the campus of Mary Baldwin University.

The change had never been a problem, he said. Admitting men pushed the college to become a university, allowed for more variety in classes and paved the way for growth.

"In the early 1970s knowing it was not a sustainable model economically, the trustees decided to expand into what we called at that time the evening and weekend classes and those classes were open to men," Morrison said. "That's kind of where it started."

What's kept the women's college alive and thriving are those additions, Morrison said.

"Mary Baldwin since the 1970s has decided that the best approach is to preserve the women's college experience as one of several opportunities within a broader structure," Cabe said.

Adding programs and opportunities that are coeducational, online and graduate, as well as other opportunities in the residential college for women helps preserve the original intended experience, she said.

"It gives us a diversity of revenue stream ... so over time we're able to balance out the financial chemistry. In a lot of ways in the addition of a coeducational program is the same pathway we've been on for 40 years now," she added.

Moving forward

Meeting with student government leaders along with students this week, Cabe said students had been receptive.

"The mood was very respectful. There were some concerns and some question on how it would work," she said. "There are some students that are embracing the idea."

Others, like many alumnae, have voiced concern.

A cadet with the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership walks alongside Hunt Dining Hall while crossing the campus of Mary Baldwin University on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016.

Student safety, reworking education programs and the future of the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, the country's only all-female cadet corps, were all topics of discussion.

"There are some students who are worried that the atmosphere of empowering women will change," Cabe said. "Our best guess is that the atmosphere will very remain what it is now, with the occasional man in class. We don't think there will be so many men in University College and in the same classes and activities that people will feel a real difference in the environment."

Some classes in the University College may overlap with College for Women, but there are certain courses which students within the University College cannot take at the College for Women.

"We cannot sustain Mary Baldwin College for Women without adding new programs and new sections of the university," Cabe said. "This is not an act of desperation, this is an act of innovation."

Mary Baldwin will offer four new residential programs, three of which will be for men and women. Currently, students can enroll at five different schools at Mary Baldwin — the College for Women, Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, Baldwin Online and Adult Programs, the College of Education and Shakespeare and Performance.

Of those five, the only school that is not coed is the College for Women.

Moving forward, MBU’s new University College will offer a new set of courses to both men and women.

Follow Laura Peters@peterslaura and@peterpants. You can reach her at lpeters@newsleader.com or 213-9125.