RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP) — Two weeks after Jo Allen took office as the eighth president of Meredith College, the shrinking pool of women’s colleges blew drier as Peace College across town decided to admit males to stem its enrollment drop.
Since 1960 the number of women’s colleges in America has shrunk from 200 to 46. Most were founded a century ago when women were not welcomed in the exclusive domain of higher education. Then higher education opened its doors to their only applicant pool. Today many formerly all-male schools now have more women students than men.
Jo Allen
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Allen, the second female and the first alumna to be Meredith president, took office July 1. Despite the unlimited educational options for female students today, she exhibits every confidence that there remains a vital role for female colleges.
Meredith College is one of two colleges started by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina — along with Wake Forest University — which at one time controlled seven colleges and universities. Ironically, the only two the BSCNC founded were the first to exercise their independence and leave the Baptist orbit. Meredith was established in 1891 and named for Thomas Meredith, a giant in early North Carolina Baptist life who also pushed to establish Wake Forest University and the newspaper that eventually became the Biblical Recorder.
During an interview in her new office on the oak-shaded campus, Allen, a 1980 Meredith graduate, said the school’s spiritual roots still grow deep.
“I think it’s very clear Meredith cherishes its history with the Baptists,” Allen said. “We still see it as a critical element of our mission, and our mission statement includes references to the spiritual development of our students.”
It is also clear, Allen would argue, that there remains a strong argument for single gender education as “a very good learning environment.”
She said when women do not have to compete with males for faculty attention and for resources “they report greater confidence in their learning, are more likely to participate in class, are more vocal about their opinions and are more willing to try their ideas in a setting that encourages and requires their participation.”
“The increasing relevance of women’s education is apparent in what we’re learning about leadership,” Allen said. “Women have a style that is more collaborative, more willing to challenge problems, to take calculated risk and challenge rules they believe are not just.”
Allen said people are sometimes confused about the relevance of women’s colleges when they “get hung up” on a history that is no longer relevant because education is no longer gender exclusive.
“That means what women’s colleges do now is focus more specifically on the learning environment and the unique opportunities to engage students in leadership roles,” Allen said. She feels educated women have “a particular obligation” to bring their unique perspective for ethical leadership into corporate environments and non-profits.
Women have a reputation as being “outstanding multi-taskers” and will excel in the current environment where everyone must do more with less “while staying true to themselves,” she said.
While pursuit of higher education seems at times to devolve into a personal quest for the key to fortune and a toe up on the success ladder, Allen said more Meredith students are feeling a call to “contribute back, to build strong communities, strong schools, strong health-care systems to take care of our elderly.”
“The whole sense of ‘to whom much is given, much is required’ is at the core of the Meredith mission,” she said.
“Academics know that same-sex education works,” Allen said. “For us it’s a matter of finding well prepared, serious students who are truly after a meaningful learning experience, and not just a college degree. That’s what distinguishes Meredith, even from other women’s colleges, is the seriousness of purpose here.”
While alumnae share stories about being able to roll out of bed, put on a coat and go to class because there were no boys on campus to impress, what Allen really remembers from her student days is, “zero tolerance for a fellow student who was not prepared.”
Meredith is one of the 10 largest women’s colleges in the U.S., with enrollment of about 2,200. It offers a joint engineering degree with North Carolina State, which is a mile down Hillsborough Road and participates in Raleigh’s “Five Colleges Program” which offers joint programming, shared faculty and exchanged students.
Allen, who came to Meredith from Widener University where she was senior vice president, also has been a tenured associate professor of English at East Carolina University and North Carolina State University. She earned her master’s degree at East Carolina and her doctorate at Oklahoma State University.
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Norman Jameson is reporting and coordinating special projects for ABP on an interim basis. He is former editor of the North Carolina Biblical Recorder.