Structural conditions and normative expectations of university life that provide barriers and opportunities to re-entry women as they request admission, enter, and undertake graduate and undergraduate studies in a private, midwestern university were examined. Interviews were conducted with administrators, staff, and professors to elicit their views on the situation of the re-entry woman. Based on the perspective of the staff and administration, the process of recruitment and provision of support services are described. The range of understandings among academics about the responsibility of the university to such special groups as minorities, women, re-entry women, the continuing education student, and the part-time student is documented. Additional considerations are views on the best and brightest students (of any category), general normative and institutional structure (the patterns of deference and demeanor), the professors' desires, and speculations about how this institution would have to change to adapt to a larger number of re-entry students than those currently accepted. Selected comments of respondents are included. (SW)