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)

Reviews literature on gender separation in education at secondary and postsecondary levels, internationally and nationally. Looks at rationale for separate form of education for women, citing research which showed that high-achieving women were more likely to have graduated from women's colleges and which documented positive correlation between…

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,…

Replicating and updating M. Elizabeth Tidball's 1973 study, this study of 1,307 women achievers corroborates earlier findings that women's colleges produce proportionately more high female achievers than do coeducational schools. Factors that may have contributed to this are discussed. (BJV)