Beyond Betrayal

Williams: Let me go to Amber, who's in Redmond, Washington. Amber, you're on Talk of the Nation. Welcome.
Amber (Caller): Oh, thank you. I was one of the sour grapes classes at Wheaton College as well. I remember the announcement. I remember the president coming in and just seating us all in the Chapel and telling us it was a [OE]red letter day.' And we went to the trustees; we did everything we could to say, [OE]Hey, we will help with recruitment. We will do what it takes to keep this place the place that makes it so special.' And they did not take advantage of that and they've been coed ever since. And my money has gone to Smith ever since.

Williams: Well, Amber, do you think that Wheaton is a lesser quality school because it admits men?

Amber: I think it's a different school. I benefited from the single-sex education I received at Wheaton. And I believe that that's the kind of education I'd like to support. And because Wheaton does not offer that any longer, I don't support it.

More than a few Wheaton alumnae/i, friends, faculty and administrators were listening to National Public Radio's [base "]Talk of the Nation[per thou] broadcast on May 2. The topic was single-sex colleges and their place in contemporary American society, and the discussion was lively and wide-ranging. When alumnae Marcia Bender '89 and Amber Swope '88 called host Juan Williams to air their views on Wheaton's transition to coeducation, the discussion hit close to home.

The very public NPR dialogue regarding Wheaton and coeducation underscored what for more than a decade has been a very private issue: How the college should address the lingering bad feelings--the sense of [base "]betrayal[per thou][~]that resulted from the transition to coeducation.

Throughout her presidency, Dale Rogers Marshall has known that there are a wide range of feelings about the coed decision. "As I travel around, that issue is always one of the topics that comes up, " Marshall said.

"At Commencement/Reunion last year, a group of women told me that the college has never acknowledged that some of them felt betrayed. I said, 'Oh, I really understand the sense of loss and the anger,' and they said, 'No, you don't hear us; we felt betrayed. It wasn't just sadness or anger or a sense of loss.' It just clicked in my head; I've got to talk about betrayal. "

Marshall wasted no time. In the summer 2000 issue of the Wheaton Quarterly, she opened a candid dialogue with alumnae, especially graduates of the classes of the '70s and '80s, to acknowledge their feelings and reaffirm the college's commitment to gender equality. These more recent graduates will become the new leaders of Wheaton, she wrote, who can "ensure that the best Wheaton traditions are passed on to future generations of women and men."

Since last summer, Marshall, Director of Alumnae/i Relations and Annual Giving Sharon Howard '87, Vice President Eric Snoek and other College Advancement staff have traveled the country on a listening tour, discussing the future of the Alumnae/i Association. What have they heard? Although most alumnae--even those initially upset by the coed decision--enthusiastically embrace today's Wheaton, significant numbers want to talk about the decision and the ways in which it affected their Wheaton connection.

The process of mending the relationships broken over the coeducation decision continues at Wheaton. A 1993 college survey revealed that more than half of those upset by the decision in 1987 had come back to embrace the college; today, even more alumnae have returned to full participation. Many immediately accepted the coed decision and some believed the move was long overdue. For a few, healing is an ongoing process.

Confusion, horror, anger and resentment.

That's the way Amy Wallens Green '89, associate director of business affairs for PBS Video in the Washington, D.C., area, described her initial response to the coed decision. Green attended a recent Alumnae/i Association forum in Washington, D.C., and voiced her continuing struggle with the acceptance of coeducation at Wheaton. Green was a sophomore when she heard the announcement in Cole Chapel in January 1987, and she recalls her initial frustration. "I chose Wheaton in large part because it was an all-female institution. My aunt, great aunt and grandmother were proud graduates of their classes. Wheaton stood for something in my mind and in my family and that pillar of pride and loyalty was shattered. I didn't want Wheaton to change while I was there. "

But Wheaton did change, and so did Green. She fondly recalled the enduring friendships she formed with male and female classmates, and the personal stories that helped her come to terms with the college's changing face. [base "]I came back to campus when a friend, Tatum Brackett '96, was attending, and she shared with me her Wheaton experience. Socially, it was not my Wheaton, but academically it was stronger. She was required to take certain courses or seminars that we never had to take. She explained how the gender-balanced curriculum worked. It was not my Wheaton, but it was a good Wheaton.

Elita Pastra-Landis '69, Wheaton professor of chemistry, also attended the Chapel session and called it "nightmarish. " She had chosen to teach science to women at her alma mater, and at first couldn't believe that a decision so important was made without input from the entire faculty. What changed her mind about the decision was, she said, the students.
"One cannot argue with success, " she said. "I believe that we are different from other colleges that went coed. The very fact that our top administrators are female and that faculty gender is balanced through the ranks makes an enormous difference."

Stefani Filak '77, a Virginia physician, recalled her anger and disappointment when she first learned of the coeducation plan at a Washington, D.C., meeting in 1987. She disconnected from the college for about five years, until she was invited to participate in the retirement festivities for Professor Bojan Jennings.

"I see Wheaton succeeding, " Filak said. "I truly believe, however, that Wheaton would have been just as successful if it had stayed a women's college. It might have been tough for a while, but if an institution does a good job and maintains integrity, it will succeed. "

For Amber Swope '88, the alumnae caller to NPR's "Talk of the Nation." Wheaton's decision to admit men cuts against her deeply held beliefs in the advantages of single-sex colleges. "The education I received at Wheaton has helped me become a successful manager at a software company. It wasn't the content of my history courses that gave me confidence; it was being part of an all-women environment and getting the chance to be heard without having to compete with men that made the difference, " she said. "I work in a 90 percent male environment, and the confidence that I developed at Wheaton in my abilities and intelligence keep me in good stead in the software industry. This is the educational experience that I want other women to have the opportunity to obtain, and Wheaton no longer offers it.

"From the solicitation mail I receive, it's obvious [to me] that some women from my class have decided to get over the decision to go coed, " Swope continued. "Maybe I've taken it too personally. I had chosen Wheaton because I believed in the principles of a women's college, and I flourished in that environment. The coed decision betrayed the investment that I had made in Wheaton. "

Vermont attorney Kerin Stackpole '84 considered breaking all ties to Wheaton after reading about the decision in the New York Times in 1987, but changed her mind after attending an alumnae meeting on coeducation in Washington, D.C.

"I was still mad during some of those meetings, but I also was reminded of the great group of people with whom I had been connected because of Wheaton, " said Stackpole, the current president of the Alumnae/i Association. "My college roommate, Anne Tafe Graw '84, and Heather Corbett '86 were the driving forces behind my 'healing' process. Annie and Heather reminded me of all that Wheaton had meant to me and how much it had positively impacted upon my life.

"Annie said, 'If you want your diploma to mean something--if you want the Wheaton ring that you wear to be a representation of the vibrant and wonderful college you know Wheaton to be--don't get mad and sit on the sidelines. Get in there and get involved. "

Stackpole dealt with her anger and stuck with the college. Along the way, she's met many Wheaton students and alums, from the classes of 1924 all the way to 2004. She found that the college has been a living, changing entity for many years. "Each person had their own spin on a common tale. We share an incredible connection, but very few of us have shared the exact same experience. Even those of us who went to Wheaton when it was a women's college have different memories, different perspectives. I have met a number of fine young men who attend or who have graduated from Wheaton. I am proud to have them in our ranks. "

Tradition. Pride. Marketing efficacy. Gender equality. Timing. Academic strength.

At standing-room-only discussion sessions with Marshall and at forums across the country during the last year, alumnae/i have revisited several areas of concern regarding Wheaton's transition to coeducation and the imprint it has left on graduates. Perhaps foremost on the minds of some alumnae/i are questions about the timing of the announcement in 1987.
June 30, 1986, marked the end of Wheaton's most successful fundraising effort to date, the Sesquicentennial Campaign. Twenty-six million dollars had been raised, thanks mainly to alumnae volunteers and donors. Noted feminist Gloria Steinem had addressed graduates just a month earlier and pride in Wheaton's mission soared. As the college touted its lasting commitment to women's education, the realities of the marketplace began to cast lasting shadows on Wheaton's admission picture.

The number of women's colleges in the U.S. had shrunk from 298 in 1960 to 90 in 1986 (today they number 73), according to the Women's College Coalition. Ivy League schools had been admitting women since the 1970s; as a result, many women's colleges either became coeducational themselves, merged with all-male or coeducational institutions, or closed due to declining enrollment and financial problems related to the increased competition in higher education. Wheaton officers revisited the option of coeducation, along with other possibilities, at an August 1986 retreat.

"I remember traveling with [then president] Tish Emerson just before the campaign was over," recalled Catherine Conover, former vice president for college advancement. "She had just finished reading a report from the Admission Office about declining numbers. We had been talking to alumnae about what a wonderful institution Wheaton was and hearing their memories about how important Wheaton was, and then we learned that new students just weren't interested. The dichotomy was so hard to deal with. "

Hope Hamilton Pettegrew '61, then president of the Alumnae Association board of directors and a trustee, first learned that coeducation was being discussed at the October 1986 trustee retreat. She recalls that many options for Wheaton were considered during that weekend, and that coeducation was the best of the possibilities.

"It was a tough time, and I had to come to my own acceptance of the idea, too," Pettegrew said. "Nobody wanted this to happen. We all thought Wheaton would always be there as we knew it.

"I was fortunate in that I was part of the process, and I had hoped I could pass that on to fellow alumnae," said Pettegrew. "I'm not sure that I did that well because there are still some who are not happy; I know that. It was hard to make people understand without them thinking that I'd just been brainwashed. If I hadn't been in the position I was in, as president of the alumnae association, I might have said that to the president at that time, that she was being duped, that there just must be another way. "

In May 1987, amid graduating seniors sporting "Vote No " buttons, a plane circling the Dimple with a banner reading "Trustees Vote No " and an army of media, the trustees voted during Commencement/Reunion Weekend to open Wheaton to men.

"No matter what the process and no matter what the timing, it was an extremely difficult issue, " explained Marshall, who became president of Wheaton in 1992. "]It was the right decision, and the years since confirm that. "

Ann Williams Badanes '76, a young alumna trustee at the time of the decision, echoed Marshall's view. "It was hard to help people understand when the change was so fundamental, " she said. "Vision is never comfortable in the short term. "

One question asked by some alumnae then and now--how did college leaders know Wheaton wouldn't have been successful as a women's college--remains difficult to answer. No one knew with 100 percent accuracy whether the college would fold or flourish; however, college officers did know that Wheaton was not immune to the enrollment decreases experienced by colleges during that era. Studies of enrollment trends by the Women's College Coalition and Penn's Institute for Research on Higher Education reported dramatic declines among SAT takers in applications to women's colleges. Another survey reported that fewer than 2 percent of female high school seniors were interested in attending a women's college.

By 1985-86, the Wheaton admissions numbers were grim, and an unprecedented marketing campaign drew fewer applicants and enrolled students than far more modest marketing efforts a decade earlier. It became painfully clear to college officers that other solutions had to be considered, and quickly.

"It was a CEO's worst nightmare " Marshall said of the difficult situation faced by college leaders. "People acting in good faith with good information made a hard decision for the best interests of the college."

According to Conover, any delay in making the decision would have been accompanied by tremendous risk to the college's reputation, a risk that officers and trustees believe they couldn't take.

"Wheaton was already in a very perilous position with respect to enrollment; we were teetering at just about 1,000 students," she said."We feared that if the picture became murkier--if Wheaton didn't know what it was--we would lose more women before we could capture those interested in a coed institution. We didn't have the strength to withstand another year of decreased enrollment."

Pettegrew recalled the situation on a very personal level. Her daughter, Ann '89, took Greek in her freshman year at Wheaton. There were three people in her class. Pettegrew knew that public perception would soon eclipse the college's message of academic strength.

"Parents sometimes view the quality of a school by its size, and if the size is under 1,000 students, as Wheaton was, there's a perception that programs aren't that great," she said. "Parents would wonder how we could support great programs with so few students."

One of the options college officers considered was limiting the student body to 1,000 students and remaining a women's college. Under that scenario, according to Conover, the college would have had to drop programs, which in turn would have lowered the value of all Wheaton degrees.

"Wheaton wasn't strongly enough positioned in the market to withstand a lot of speculation about how long it would last," she added. "If people got into a drawn-out contemplation of Wheaton's future, it would have become a self-fulfilling prophesy."

Whenever the lingering dissatisfaction about coeducation is discussed today, the conversations often question whether Wheaton has lowered the admission requirements in order to admit large numbers of men. The college is gender blind in admissions, admitting students based on the strength of their record, regardless of gender.

"It's a false perception that male students here are less qualified than female students; we have tried in many ways to say that's just not true," Marshall said. "We rank students based on a holistic assessment of everything that they've done. We don't lower the standards for men."

Wheaton's most recent academic success confirms Marshall's view. In the 2000-2001 academic year, Wheaton students and recent graduates--four women, four men--won eight prestigious international awards: a Rhodes, British Marshall, Truman, Udall and four Fulbright scholarships. "An extraordinary feat for any college," reported the Washington Post in May. In addition, the applicant pool continues to grow in size and quality; last fall more than 3,000 students--with an average GPA of 3.3--competed for approximately 450 first-year openings on campus.

Gender equality in the classroom and in Wheaton culture is another area of concern to alumnae, and is more difficult to quantify. Nonetheless, it remains at the heart of the college's ideology. According to sociology professor Kersti Yllo, there are clear gender patterns in the ways classroom discussions are conducted. Faculty are conscious of those patterns and use pedagogical tools to draw out students who speak less, no matter what the gender.

"]When I see a class go out of balance, we talk about it as a class," Yllo said.
Yllo pointed out that faculty workshops provide opportunities to learn about pedagogical tools, and the full curriculum review underway now will reinforce gender equality in the classroom and the curriculum. The college already offers a women's studies major, something that was unavailable during the single-sex years.

"One of the most exciting things for me, as one who was opposed to coeducation, is the idea that women will continue to move forward in this world when we take men with us,[" Yllo added. "I see male students taking up women's issues. One of my former male students works in a rape crisis center; another reaches out to at-risk youth. I'm very proud of the men who are doing this work."

Marshall believes Wheaton is a model of gender equality, a unique environment where women have much more of a chance to thrive than at many coed institutions.
"There are women's colleges, there are traditional coed colleges, and there are exceptional coed colleges like Wheaton," she said. "Women at Wheaton have greater chances for leadership, greater chances to be respected, because they see role models all over the place. We strive to maintain a collaborative culture for women and men; it's terribly good for both women and men to be in an environment where women are seen as equals."

To reinforce Wheaton's commitment to women's leadership, Marshall is working with Alumnae/i Relations, Student Life and the Filene Center to plan a women's leadership conference in March. Aimed at Wheaton's sophomore women, the conference will introduce students to the universe of strong role models that make up Wheaton's alumnae/i body, who will speak about their experiences as women leaders.

Every day the college and the Alumnae/i Association grow in strength and stature, and the specter of a difficult era becomes more faint. The overarching message? According to Stackpole, today's Wheaton, in many ways, is different from yesterday's Wheaton, just as yesterday's Wheaton was different from the day before.

"The best way for us to proceed is to acknowledge that the decision to go coed was upsetting for many, but that it must be embraced because it is the way of Wheaton's future," Stackpole said. "The more we can do to encourage alums to meet and get to know those who came before them and those who came after them--men and women--the stronger our association will be. By reconnecting with alums of all ages, we find the common threads and themes that bind us."