Equality of Access or Opportunity: The Role of Womens Colleges in the 21st Century :: Free Essays Online

Equality of Access or Opportunity The spot of Womens Colleges in the 21st Century 1. In 2001, almost fifteen one thousand thousand students attended postsecondary institutions in the United States and more than half of these students were women. Of these young-bearing(prenominal) students, xcviii percent of them attended coeducational institutions, but only two percent of them attended womens colleges (Langdon 2). man this data statistically documents American societys strong flavor in the value of coeducation, it also highlights the recent decline in the popularity of womens colleges. As American society has come to believe that the problem of inequality in the education of men and women is no longer pertinent due to the position that women are in a flash afforded entry to higher education, the country has discredited the rigourousness of womens single-sex education. However, the surviving womens colleges are challenging this chafe-based definition of equality by chan ge their mission statements and strengthening their educational goals. By refusing to equate equality of access with equality of opportunity and therefore recognizing the gender inequalities present in the educational system, womens colleges currently serve as the best way to prepare female students for active participation in the public sphere. 2. In order to ascertain the recent trend towards coeducation, the evolution of the womens college as a response to the overleap of access to higher education must first be explored in depth. The women-only institutions that preceded the womens college and were highly popular from the 1820s on were known as academies or seminaries (Harwarth 1). While they did teach core academic subjects to their pupils, seminaries were seen by many progressive educationalists as an inadequate way to deal with the lack of quality education for females. such(prenominal) seminaries lacked the governance of a board of trustees that provides educational insti tutions with permanence, credibility, and direction through the create of a mission statement and economic support in the fashion model of an endowment. Because validity was seen as an essential step towards guaranteeing women a level educational playing- field, womens colleges followed the organizational mold cast by mens colleges, including forming board of trustees, actions that institutionalised and therefore made important the goal of equal education for women. It was this principle of equality upon which womens colleges were founded, specifically at this time period the equality of access to higher education. The will of Sophia Smith, founder of Smith College in 1875, stated that that it is with the blueprint to furnish my sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our Colleges for young men (Harwarth 4).