Thursday, April 30, 2009

Gratitude Post - 4 of 12

I’m admittedly a little late on April’s gratitude entry, but it’s been a busy month. One of the recurring April events that I am always excited about is Alumnae Reunion / May Day Weekend at my alma mater.

This brings me to my fourth gratitude entry. I’m grateful to be a women’s college educated woman.

When people ask me what college I attended and I explain my answer, I am often met with the same reply. “A women’s college? Like all girls? Why?” I chose a women’s college for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and I am a strong supporter of single-sex education. It’s often hard to explain the benefits to someone unfamiliar with this system, but a quick glance at research can give you a variety of reasons to support single-sex education (adapted from the Women’s College Coalition and the National Survey of Student Engagement).

Only 2.5 percent of the women attending college attend women's colleges, yet their graduates account for 24 percent of our U.S. Congress members and 1/3 of the female board members of Fortune 1000 companies.

They have measurably higher levels of self-esteem than other achieving women in coeducational institutions—9 out of 10 women's college graduates give their colleges high marks for fostering and developing self-confidence.

They are more likely to graduate, and more than twice as likely as graduates of coeducational colleges to earn doctoral degrees and to enter medical school.


They earn more after graduation because they often choose traditionally male disciplines, like the sciences, as their academic major, in greater numbers. Women's colleges continue to graduate women in math and the sciences at 1.5 times the rate of coed institutions.

Both seniors and first-year students at women’s colleges scored higher on active and collaborative learning and student-faculty interaction than their counterparts at coeducational institutions.

Facts like these, however, don’t even begin to explain what I got from a single-sex education. I think the most important thing I learned in my years on women’s college campuses is the importance of female friendship. Perceiving the world through female eyes is simply different than understanding life as our male counterparts do. We are persistently challenged with stereotypical assumptions, and we have to make choices about career and family that male peers don’t even have to consider.

Companionship is a need for all humans, but having a reliable circle of female friends who have grown with you is an invaluable asset. I loved my years at Brenau and my time at Agnes Scott, and there’s nothing more fulfilling than coming of age with a group of women whom you respect and admire. If I have a daughter, I can only hope that she finds fulfillment in female friendships as I have. Somehow “friendship” does not do it justice; I think a new word needs to be coined for women’s college friendships.







“You have been prepared for leadership, prepared to meet the intellectual and social challenges of this time. […] My sisters, we know women are agents for change in every society and country of the world. … Stand up for social justice and fairness, speak up for human rights, act up for America’s promise. Lead America into a new generation, a time of universal peace, justice and human rights. You are the leaders of this time. Seize this time and do good deeds." – Shirley Franklin 2008 Agnes Scott College Graduation (http://www.womenscolleges.org/thoughts/index)