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By Joanne V. Creighton
With its own powerful traditions, norms, and values, and a sense of wholeness sui generis, a women's college helps to develop in students a sense of confidence, competence, and agency. Graduates are more able to see gender-repression when they encounter it and to distinguish between personal and systemic barriers to success.

by PATRICIA MCGUIRE
May 16 2007Hartford Courant
Rip it up and throw it away. That's the advice I'm giving my fellow college and university presidents this month as the "reputation survey" from U.S. News & World Report lands on our desks.

By SARA RIMER
Published: Feb. 12, 2007

Recalling her coming of age as the only girl in a privileged, tradition-bound family in Virginia horse country, Drew Gilpin Faust, 59, has often spoken of her “continued confrontations” with her mother “about the requirements of what she usually called femininity.”

The Newcomb Summit, Educating Women for a World in Crisis, held on campus February 8-11, 2007 gave students a great opportunity to present their service-oriented projects in a conference that brings together internationally-renowned speakers. The summit addressed ways in which higher education can better prepare women for a world where crisis is a daily reality.

From the Trinity University website

As the 110th U.S. Congress convenes in January 2007, Trinity graduate and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi '62 will be making history as she is sworn in as Speaker of the House: she is the first woman to hold this powerful leadership position. Her name is etched in history as it was added to the roster of 51 male Speakers of the House.

January 11 - 15, 2007

Nearly 200 of the nation’s outstanding young progressive leaders -- including six women's college students -- will gather in Washington, D.C., over the 2007 Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, to share ideas, learn organizing skills and hear from national progressive movement leaders at the Third Annual Young People For National Summit for Progressive Leaders and Activists.

From the Trinity University President Patricia A. McGuire's January 4, 2007 Blog

Today, a Trinity Woman made history. Shortly after noon, Nancy Pelosi, Class of 1962, took the oath of office as Speaker of the House of the Congress of the United States. She is now the highest ranking elected woman in our nation's history, the first woman Speaker of the House.

After becoming involved with Pericles three years ago, Chatham changed its core curriculum so that all students are required to complete a course called Citizenship and Civic Engagement.

By Julie Scelfo, Newsweek
In Virginia, three elite women's colleges reinvent themselves and find a new mission in a coed world.

By
April Simpson,
Globe Staff
November 5, 2006
from the Boston Globe

'Sisters' don't want a future in coeducation
Now student leaders at the colleges still known as the "Seven Sisters," even though their number has dwindled to five, are joining forces to discuss the future of women's schools. Last weekend, they gathered in Northampton and agreed that they had an obligation to maintain the traditions upon which their institutions were founded.

By Rosanna Hertz, from the October 30, 2006 edition

Single motherhood is on the rise for women in their mid-30s to early 40s.
Rosanna Hertz, a professor of women's studies and sociology at Wellesley College, is the author of "Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women Are Choosing Parenthood Without Marriage and Creating the New American Family." In her article for the Christian Science Monitor, she exposes the trend of single motherhood for women in their 30's and 40's.

By Janet L. Holmgren, President, Mills College, October 11, 2006 from the San Jose Mercury News
In 1990, Mills College came close to walking the same path as these colleges, and reversed the decision to go coed following major protests. Since that time, we have increased enrollment, expanded opportunities for professional graduate education linked to our undergraduate, liberal arts core, broken previous fundraising records, accelerated our academic achievements, and earned national preeminence among higher educational institutions nationwide.

By Susan Scrimshaw, October 4, 2006 from the Boston Globe
TWO WOMEN'S colleges, Regis College and Randolph-Macon Woman's College, announced recently they will become co educational. Does this matter? Haven't today's women “made it”? Are women's colleges still relevant today?

Fall 2006
Women - and women's colleges - win high honors

For women’s colleges, a high priority is to prepare women for leadership and hasten the day when pay is equal, the policies of government and business adequately support women in the workplace and the obligations of family life, and those long-enduring "old boys’ clubs" have passed completely into history.

This is a PDF file of a presentation given at the National Association for College Admission Counseling [NACAC] Annual Meeting in October of 2006. A 27-page overview of the National Survey on Student Engagement [NSSE] and more.
Click to download PDF

By
Amanda Millner-Fairbanks,
Sept. 17, 2006
from the Boston Globe

Pine Manor is leader in campus diversity
Jeanmarie Salie is now living among the giant evergreens on Pine Manor College's 60-acre campus in Brookline. Buried deep in the soil is a tradition of debutante days on campus, when breakfast was routinely taken in bed on Sunday mornings. As a member of the largest incoming class -- at 206 students -- in the school's history, Salie, 17, will graduate from an institution whose alumnae might not recognize it.

Sept. 14, 2006 from the Roanoke Times
For women, some of the most distinctive and effective choices are the nation's women's colleges. As leaders of two such institutions, Sweet Briar College and Hollins University, we have witnessed firsthand the difference a single-sex atmosphere can make in the personal and intellectual growth of our students.

^ Trinity Washington University President Patricia A. McGuire

By Patricia McGuire » July 27, 2006
In debates about accountability in higher education, few data points are as frequently misused as graduation rates. Graduation rates measure attendance time, not outcomes, predicated upon a narrow cohort of “traditional” students (fewer than 25 percent of today’s undergraduates) who start as full-time, first-time freshmen and graduate within six years at the same institution. Aside from traditional transfer students who are unfairly characterized as “dropouts”(even if they complete degrees on the same timetable elsewhere), this statistical blind spot is also biased against older, part-time students and many female and minority students, who are more likely to have the personal and financial challenges that accompany extended time to graduation. Millions of such students do complete their degrees, albeit on a “non-traditional” timetable and following a more circuitous collegiate pathway.

May 2004

Sport, Physical Activity and the Health and Well-Being of American Girls

“Her Life Depends On It,” is the most comprehensive compilation of research to date about the impact of physical activity on the physical, psychological and cultural health of girls. The report points to physical activity and sport as fundamental solutions for many of the serious health and social problems faced by girls. These include obesity, heart disease, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and depression – which accounts for much of the more than $1 trillion spent on healthcare for treating these issues.

This report is a comprehensive compendium of research that points to physical activity and sport as fundamental solutions for many of the serious health and social problems faced by American girls.

Photo by Matt Gunther for Newsweek

A feminist scholar explains how the study of girls can teach us about boys.
By Carol Gilligan, Newsweek Jan. 30, 2006 issue -
As the mother of three sons, I have attended my share of hand-wringing parent-teacher conferences. Having read "Tom Sawyer" and "Catcher in the Rye," I know that boys and school don't mix. That boys are having trouble with school is not news. But images of rough-and-tumble boys not fit for the classroom now may blind us to a problem that has less to do with how boys seem and more with who they actually are—but are not allowed to show.

By Jan McCoy Ebbets, from NewsSmith

In the low-visibility, moisture-dense cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica, it didn’t take long for Smith College professors Amy Rhodes ’91, a geochemist, and Andrew Guswa, a theoretical hydrologist, to clearly see the rich opportunities for hands-on teaching and collaborative research.

This is a PDF file of an article that appeared in the College of St. Benedict Fall 2005 Magazine:
“Women as Global Leaders: Educating the Next Generation” was produced and hosted by Zayed University in Dubai. Each participant shared in the same vision, according to Katie, “the continuing empowerment of women.”
Click to download PDF