In 2020, Carol Leary will be retiring as president of Bay Path University after twenty-five years. Her career in education, however, has spanned more than four decades. As she prepares to move on to the next chapter of her life, she reflects on her Bay Path journey and shares her optimism about the challenges higher education faces today. She…

Historical scholarship has traditionally focused on the commonalities uniting Catharine Beecher and Mary Lyon, the two leading antebellum women's educational reformers in New England. This essay shifts that focus by contrasting their educational philosophies and exploring the implications their differences had for the development of American…

This essay examines women's commencement addresses presented from 1910 to 1915 at Vassar College. These addresses are significant because they reveal the students' rhetorical education and the "available means" upon which these women drew in developing a public voice. By prompting reflection and the potential for change, the commencement…

Considers relationship between women's colleges and women's movement. Notes that, although private legal scholars did not perceive women's colleges within reach of proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), popular assumption was that, if passed, ERA would have eliminated women's colleges. Adds that women's colleges were not major players in…

Offers account of practical and political aspects of maintaining counterpoint, mini-war against coeducation that captured minds and emotions of people and media around the world. Describes story of Mills College and events that followed college's aborted decision to become coeducational. (NB)

Looks at coeducation decisions made by Smith and Amherst Colleges in 1970s, Smith reaffirming its commitment to separate education and Amherst changing from all-male to coeducational college. Describes contrasting bases for the decisions made by the two colleges. (NB)

Presents interview with Mary Maples Dunn, president of traditionally female Smith College, who looks at future of women's colleges and notes that as number of women's colleges declines, clearer does mission become to offer distinct choice in higher education and to maintain alternative in society that prides itself on diversity and choice. (NB)

Author describes her perspective on the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies, integral part of Wellesley College established in 1981 and dedicated to prevention of emotional problems, primarily among women. Describes Education, Research, and Counseling divisions of the Stone Center and the basic tenets that drive the center's…

Curriculum development to incorporate new scholarship about women is necessary and would be aided by two ingredients: visiting professorships to bring artists and scholar-teachers versed in the new scholarship to campus for the benefit of both faculty and students, and stipends or release time for faculty wishing to transform existing courses.…

In March 1989, the Justice Department began investigating the admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Summarizes the legal theories advanced by both the VMI Foundation and Virginia's woman attorney general in defense of VMI's all-male tradition. Compares past single-sex admission cases with the VMI arguments. (MLF)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth District, although stopping short of ordering the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) to admit women, ordered VMI to implement a program which comports with the requirements of equal protection. Offers an analysis of the Fourth Circuit's ruling, a discussion of important educational questions, and a…

Presents interview with Sister Joel Read, who offers candid, insightful, and provocative perspective of unique role of Catholic women's colleges and how their history and tradition of social action and service and their urban base distinguish them from 50% of non-Catholic women's colleges. Describes Alverno College's unique model of self-directed,…

Presents an edited transcript of a discussion with seven Simmons College faculty members about education for women and the role a women's college can play in a period of social change. Discussion topics include Simmons as a women's college, meaningful work, non-traditional careers, counseling responsibilities, and potential students. (CAM)

Introduces essays which developed out of a 1993 Speech Communication Association meeting panel on what women scholars would like to see in communication studies for women's education in the university of the future. (PA)

Mary Lyon was the founder of Mount Holyoke College and a pioneer in science education. She was an early proponent of the laboratory method of teaching, disseminating it throughout nineteenth-century schools. Lyon established a distinguished chemistry faculty and founded an excellent department which has trained many women chemists. (SM)