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Are Same-Sex Colleges Still Relevant?

Last week, the board of Sweet Briar College, an all-women’s school in Virginia, announced that

it would be permanently shuttered in August due to “insurmountable financial challenges.” The school’s president, James Jones, Jr., attributed the close, in part, to the declining number of “young women willing to consider a single-sex education.” Is there still a place for same-sex colleges? Do they play an important role in education, or are they outdated?

Sweet Briar Is Fighting an Up-Hill Battle

Diane Halpern, the dean of social sciences at Minerva Schools at KGI and former president of the American Psychological Association, is the author of "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities."

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 3:31 AM

The popular idea that single-sex education benefits women comes from anecdotes about female leaders who were educated in an era when elite colleges did not admit them.

Despite a beautiful campus, dedicated faculty, loyal alumnae and a significant endowment, Sweet Briar College is closing after 114 years. Too few students were choosing Sweet Briar, so the college discounted its tuition rate, a move that exacerbated its financial problems but did not succeed in attracting enough students.

As a small, rural, liberal arts women's college, Sweet Briar was fighting an up-hill battle against many trends in higher education. Although all of these variables probably contributed to the lack of student interest, President James Jones, Jr. acknowledged that declining interest in single-sex education was decisive in its demise. Data supports this conclusion: According to the Women's College Coalition, the number of women’s colleges declined from 230 to little more than 40 in the last half-century.

By many measures, today's women are flourishing in higher education and do not need a protected environment to develop their intellectual potential. Women are enrolled in higher education at higher rates than men and achieve better grades. Young women are at or near parity in many “traditionally male” professions including law and medicine.

While women are still underrepresented in positions of leadership and in some, but not all, math-intensive disciplines, there is no data to support the myth that single-sex colleges prepare women better to become leaders in our co-ed world or that their graduates are more likely to choose math-intensive career options.

The popular idea that single-sex education benefits women comes from anecdotes about female leaders who were educated in an era when elite colleges did not admit them. For example, Hillary Clinton attended Wellesley College, but she also graduated from Yale Law School, which was co-ed.

Sweet Briar Was the Best Place for Me

Julia Patt, a 2009 graduate of Sweet Briar College, is the communications manager for

the Starfish Foundation, Inc.

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 3:31 AM

As long as misogyny and violence against women exists in our society, open environments like women's colleges remain relevant.

My parents, friends and teachers were more than a little concerned when I made my college choice. I suppose they had imagined me at an edgy art school in Brooklyn or a city-sized state university surrounded by 50,000 others. Instead, I picked a small, rural women’s college, most notable for its equestrian program and its unusual choice of school colors: pink and green.

“You hate pink. Are you sure that’s the best place for you?” they asked, probably thinking I’d taken a recent blow to the head.

But it was the best place for me. Sweet Briar College — located in central Virginia on a stunning 3,200-acre campus — provided me with the exact kind of education I needed. In my years there, I designed psychology experiments to track imitation bias, waded through streams to examine aquatic ecosystems and engaged in lively seminars about everything from the causes of Soviet upheaval to modern definitions of torture. Our professors were always on hand to answer questions or continue classroom conversations over coffee. My friends and I lingered for hours in the dining hall musing about current events, ethical quandaries or (one time) the origins of the letter 'W.'

At the time, I didn’t care that the school was single-sex; I just wanted a good education. Looking back, I can see how crucial that aspect of the institution was to my education. I have since completed two co-educational graduate programs, where I’ve seen, firsthand this time, classroom bias in action: Professors often favor male participation without realizing it.

I’ve rea d countless articles on the under-representation of women and the sexism rampant in the STEM fields, to say nothing of the myriad issues regarding the waysexual assault is handled at prestigious co-educational universities. As long as misogyny and violence against women exist in our society, open environments like women's colleges remain, and indeed achieve new ways to be, relevant. For example, women’s colleges have begun admitting transgender students, offering a supportive educational experience for a much ignored and abused community.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with dozens of Sweet Briar alumnae. The reason for our gathering is shared heartbreak: Our board of directors has decided to close the college. But the conversations we have remind me what I so loved about my experience there. It is

amazing how thoughtful and creative women can be when their community supports and listens to them. And luckily for all of us, confidence, critical thinking and independence goes into the world with them.

The Success of All-Male Schools

Christopher B. Howard is the president of Hampden-Sydney College, a private, liberal arts school for men.

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 3:31 AM

Institutions solely dedicated to teaching and encouraging males to achieve — when society often expects so little of them — remain important.

It is perhaps more important now, than at any time in recent history, to offer multiple, viable paths to young men to help them succeed. Allowing all-male educational options to fall away deprives boys and men of the institutions that may be personally and intellectually right for them.

Institutions solely dedicated to teaching and encouraging males to achieve – when society often expects so little of them – remain necessary for primary, secondary and undergraduate education. Men fail out of school at a higher rate than women, boys read at a lower level than girls and earn fewer A’s and B’s than their female counterparts. The number of male high school valedictorians pales in comparison to the number of females who earn that distinction and women graduate at higher rates than men.

But all-male schools have seen incredible success for their students, who have a wide range of abilities, talents and interests. That is why schools such as Chicago's Urban Prep Academy with

its 100 percent college placement rate, and Hampden-Sydney College with its strong graduation rate – 11 percent higher than the national average for men – occupy an important space in America's education mosaic.

Colleges like Hampden-Sydney, Morehouse, St. John's University in Minnesota and Wabash afford the sons of an astonishing number of diverse families the opportunity to attend places that are focused explicitly on assisting students with their journey from boyhood, to "guyhood," to manhood. Although it can be a difficult task regardless of the student's circumstances, modern men's colleges and boys’ schools have done it well for years.

Same-Sex Schools Perpetuate Notions of Difference Between

Men and Women

Lise Eliot, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University, is the author of "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow

Into Troublesome Gaps – And What We Can Do About It."

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 11:52 AM

If we really want women and men to compete on even playing fields, they have to be raised and educated in a truly gender-integrated way.

Whether at the K-12 or college level, the existence of single-sex schools perpetuates the myth that males and females think and learn differently. This is just one reason why they are outdated and ultimately not beneficial in preparing young people for today’s gender-integrated society.

Overall, women have done very well academically since the passage of Title IX and integration of most universities. They now earn some 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 63 percent of master’s, and 53 percent of doctoral degrees awarded each year in the U.S. However, they are still woefully underrepresented in engineering and computer science, fields that are not typically strong at all-women’s colleges. (Sweet Briar does not formally offer a computer science major.)

The question, then, is: How do we keep girls interested in math-intensive fields and on track toward STEM careers that still look mostly male?

Make sure they are comfortable playing with the boys. Single-sex education isoften predicated on the notion that females and males have inherently different cognitive and interpersonal styles and, therefore, need sex-specific pedagogy to best reach their potential.

But the truth is that sex differences in math ability, spatial skills, assertiveness and competitiveness are much more a product of gender socialization and segregation. In other words, it is precisely because girls and boys spend so much time apart, practicing different skills and relational styles, that they walk into college classrooms with different types of academic confidence and career ambition.

Neuropsychological research has identified very few innate differences between males and females and for most academic and interpersonal skills, the sexes actually overlap much

more than they differ. If we really want women and men to compete on even playing fields, they have to be raised and educated in a truly gender-integrated way, where no one is excluded and both sexes learn how to respect, collaborate with and lead each other through shared experience.

The Freeing Powers of Single-Sex Education

Edward Fergus, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at New York University, is a co-author of "Schooling for Resilience: Improving the Life Trajectory of Black and Latino Boys."

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 3:31 AM

Single-sex schools allow black and Latino boys to feel comfortable and express their emotions, changing notions about a one dimensional image of masculinity.

Years ago, during a classroom visit, I observed a small group of black and Latino high school boys sitting at their desks looking into handheld mirrors. They were tasked with answering the question, “What do you see?” One boy said, “I see an ugly face.” Another said, “I see a big nose.”

It was one of the many moments I observed in single-sex schools where black and Latino boys felt comfortable, and allowed, to express their emotions, changing notions about a one dimensional image of masculinity. Our society is partly responsible for the ways in which gender-based expectations can be reinforced and, over time, those expectations can help create vulnerable situations that lead to limited economic mobility, job opportunity and leadership development.

A benefit of single-sex environments is the opportunity for cognitive expansion that can exist alongside multifaceted displays of masculinity and femininity. In single-sex education, teachers make an understanding of race, ethnicity, linguistic diversity, masculinity, femininity and sexuality a profound part of their educational mission. Such identity-driven missions create protective environments, like the ones found in single-sex high schools like Urban Prep Academy and Eagle Academy, and colleges like Bryn Mawr, Spelman and Morehouse.

Overall, the closing of single-sex colleges like Sweet Briar may be more indicative of economic and demographic dynamics — stagnant high school graduation and college readiness, increasing college costs and the rise in online education — rather than a drop in importance and relevance for environments where “Who I am” and “Who I want to be” take center stage. Those questions, safely explored, allow students to develop in healthy cognitive, social and emotional ways, with gender nonconforming values.