Women's college

In higher education, a women's college is a college (that is, a primarily undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institution) whose students are exclusively women. Many are liberal arts colleges. Some women's colleges admit small numbers of male students to their graduate schools or to part-time undergraduate programs, but all serve a primarily female student body.

United States history

According to Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra, "women's colleges were founded during the mid- and late-19th century in response to a need for advanced education for women at a time when they were not admitted to most institutions of higher education" ^*. While there were a few coeducational colleges (such as Oberlin College founded in 1833, Antioch College in 1853, and Bates College in 1855), most colleges and universities of high standing at that time were exclusively for men.

Timeline of women's colleges in the United States

''See main article: Timeline of women's colleges in the United States

Seven Sister colleges

The Seven Sisters (Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Vassar College, Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, Bryn Mawr College and Barnard College) were all founded between 1837-1889, though they were not grouped together until 1927. Four of the seven sisters are situated in Massachusetts, two in New York, and one in Pennsylvania. Only five (Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, and Wellesley College) remain single-sex today.

Historically black colleges

Bennett College and Spelman College are historically black women's colleges. Bennett has been described as the Vassar of the South and Spelman as the Radcliffe College of historically black colleges.

Women's colleges and coeducation

One debate which developed in response to second-wave feminism revolves around the question of coeducation. During the 1960s and 1970s, many of the most prominent American men's colleges, including multiple Ivy League institutions, became co-ed. Some women's colleges also responded by becoming coeducational, such as the Seven Sister Radcliffe College, which merged with Harvard University. In addition, another Seven Sister college, Vassar College, declined an offer to merge with Yale University and instead became coeducational in 1969. Connecticut College and Sarah Lawrence College also became co-ed during the late 1960s. Additional women's colleges (such as Wells College, which became co-ed in 2005) have more recently adopted co-education.

Other schools responded to the tenets of second-wave feminism by promoting the importance of maintaining their single-sex status. Since 1900, the seven sister college, Barnard College has been affiliated with Columbia University, but it continues to be independently governed. In 1983, Columbia College began admitting women after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard for a merger along the lines of Harvard and Radcliffe. In 1990, Mills College's tentative decision to become co-ed was met with so much resistance from students and alumnae that the proposal was dropped. Sweet Briar College recently renewed its decision to remain single-sex ^*. Of the original Seven Sisters colleges, Mount Holyoke College, Wellesley College, Bryn Mawr College, and Smith College remain unaffiliated women's colleges. In addition, historically prominent women's colleges such as Spelman College, Agnes Scott College, Bennett College, Simmons College, and Scripps College have maintained their single-sex status.

References

Gordon, Lynn D. "Women's Colleges." In Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History. Ed. Wilma Mankiller et al.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Harwath, Irene Mindi Maline, Elizabeth DeBra. "Women's Colleges in the United States: History, Issues, and Challenges: Executive Summary." U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).
Rosenberg, Rosalind. "The Limits of Access: The History Of Coeducation in America." In Women and Higher Education: Essays from the Mount Holyoke College Sesquicentennial Symposia. Ed. John Mack Faragher and Florence Howe. New York: Norton, 1988.

External links

Making the Case for Girls' Schools: Today's single-sex institutions are separate and equal
Women's College Coalition - an association representing women’s colleges in the United States and Canada

Women's universities and colleges | Women's universities and colleges in the United States | 女子大学

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