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…

At the moment of its founding in 1911, Connecticut College for Women exhibited a curricular tension between an emphasis on the liberal arts, which mirrored the elite men's and women's colleges of the day, and vocational aspects, which made it a different type of women's college, one designed to prepare women for the kind of lives they would lead…

The Supreme Court of Virginia has ruled in favor of Randolph College in two lawsuits brought by students and alumnae donors upset that the institution, formerly Randolph-Macon Woman's College, went coed last fall. In one case, the court ruled against a group of students who argued that the decision to enroll men was a breach of contract. The…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have received inadequate funding since their inception. This has challenged the development of programs and infrastructure, the adoption of technology, and the recruitment of faculty and students. Yet among HBCUs there are standouts that, despite unequal funding patterns in comparison to…

Women's colleges in the 1970s and 1980s faced highly uncertain futures. Soaring popularity of coeducation left them with serious enrollment downturns, and challenges from proposed equal rights legislation threatened to render illegal their single-sex admissions policies. These perilous external conditions drew together the presidents of U.S.…

Describes how the trustees of Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, ousted the president, who had argued for a radical shift in strategy to combat falling enrollment, including the possibility of admitting men. (EV)

Describes how Bennett College, an historically black women's institution, is trying to regroup after its latest president lasted only seven months. (EV)

Spelman College has chosen one of its own alumnae, Audrey Manley, acting Surgeon General of the United States, as its eighth president. Some controversy accompanies the appointment. Manley is the widow of former Spelman President Albert Manley. (MSE)

Discusses how, as Spelman and Bennett colleges both search for new presidents, finding and keeping leaders for historically Black women's colleges is becoming a growing challenge. (EV)

The new president of Spelman College, Johnnetta Cole, would like to make Spelman the leading center of international thought on the condition of Black women in the world. She wants to remain active as an academician and is finding time to pursue her scholarly work. (MLW)

Nannerl Overhouser Keohane, one of a new breed of women presidents of women's colleges, is strongly committed to feminist scholarship and is also working to prepare Wellesley's graduates for the technology of the future. The role of minority students at Wellesley is discussed. (MLW)

This paper presents a chronological description of the evolution of women's advancement in higher education, particularly in administrative capacities, and examines the establishment of the three types of institutions that came into being in order to meet women's educational needs: the single-sex college; the coordinate college; and the…

The history of the Mississippi University for Women (MUW) from 1884 to 1984 is described. MUW, the first state-supported college for women is now coeducational, but adheres to its original mission of providing educational opportunity for women. Educational, administrative, and architectural developments are traced, with attention to leaders who…

Discussion of the role of small liberal arts colleges for women focuses on the role and impact of information technology based on the views of Maggie O'Brien, president of Hollins College. Topics addressed include a computer networking project developed with partnerships with businesses; communicating at a distance; and future possibilities. (LRW)

A case study of an anonymous college that experienced the threat of failure but managed to revitalize its operation is presented. Participant observation, interviews, and document review were used in the study that focused on the period just prior to closing and the period since its reopening. (MLW)