ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601290050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HAMPDEN-SYDNEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE FACULTY HAS MET on the coed question and could vote to admit women. But most of the board members are thought to oppose the idea.
Hampden-Sydney College, one of only two all-male, nonmilitary colleges in the country, is considering going coed.
Last week, the faculty of the college met in what one member described as a free-form debate to discuss a resolution to begin admitting women.
A formal motion to have the faculty vote on the issue could come as early as February, and the outcome of the vote, while not binding, would then be passed along as a recommendation to the college's board of trustees.
``This would be an advisory thing, a `sense of the faculty' resolution,'' said Owen Norment, one of the authors of the resolution. ``I don't think it will come at the February meeting, but possibly in March or April.''
The college's 1995 self-study recommended that coeducation be discussed.
``I think it would be good for the college, that it would enrich the academic program, and that it would not detract from any of the things that the college holds dear,'' said Norment, a professor of religion.
More than 20 years ago, the faculty voted to admit women, but the board of trustees declined to make the change, a professor said.
Samuel V. Wilson, Hampden-Sydney's president, said the idea for coeducation at the private college, founded in 1776, is not new. The school is revisiting the issue to plan for the future, he said.
``Factors include the fact that enrollment is highly competitive and we have to work very hard to fill a class,'' Wilson said. ``Another thing is the VMI case and what it might portend for Hampden-Sydney.''
Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported, all-male military college in Lexington, is awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling about whether it will be forced to admit women. Wabash College in Indiana is the country's other nonmilitary, all-male school.
Richard McClintock, Hampden-Sydney's director of publications, said the majority of the board members seem to oppose coeducation.
The college's strategic planning committee is slated to study two options, including admitting women. The study is aimed at maintaining academic standards, said B.A. Klein, media relations director.
The other option is to reduce enrollment to about 925 students, down from the current roll of about 950, Klein said.
``At the moment, the arrow is not pointing at either [option], but at making the present model work,'' Wilson said.
On Friday, the campus newspaper, The Tiger, quoted J. Scott Colley, college provost and dean of the faculty, as supporting coeducation. The newspaper's editor, Chris Stirewalt, said most students oppose the idea, however.
``If the board of trustees and our president are the men we think they are, this place won't go coed,'' he said. ``You don't come to Hampden-Sydney in spite of single-sex education; you come because of single-sex education.''
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