Perhaps in the majority of higher education institutions, women’s issues no longer register as being a significant and important area of research. Perhaps the value of a women’s college is the culture of these institutions where women’s voices matter, where resources are focused on women and where issues related to women are always a part of the agenda. This in itself makes women’s colleges a fascinating topic of study. The aim of the study was to understand why Mount Holyoke College alumnae based in Hong Kong chose to attend Mount Holyoke, their experiences while at Mount Holyoke and how it has affected them in terms of further education and their careers. My research had several sub-themes and the literature reviewed was also in separate categories. I looked at the history of women’s colleges in the United States, as well as the changing patterns of enrollment and recent history of women’s colleges in the United States. Women’s colleges comprise a very small number of institutions in the United States and as many are liberal arts colleges, can be seen as a sub-group of liberal arts colleges. I therefore reviewed literature on liberal arts colleges as well to situate that in the broader picture of higher education in the United States. I could not neglect looking at women’s colleges around the world, as they are crucial in understanding the role women’s colleges in the United States have played. By framing my research using ‘centers’ and ‘peripheries’, I sought to explore some of the contributions that women’s colleges in the United States have played, whether as the ‘center’ or the ‘periphery’ institutions. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The question of the necessity of women’s colleges has been posed by a variety of online news sources. Headlines reading, “Are Women’s Colleges Outdated?” and “Why Women’s Colleges Are Still Relevant” are sprinkled throughout the webpages of news conglomerates like Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Jezebel. I argue that the belief in a post-sexist society and the prevalence of hegemonic masculinity renders the necessity of women’s educational institutions invisible. Through an anti-racist feminist lens with a focus on the hegemonic practices of our patriarchal society, I shed light on how women’s colleges are currently positioned in the United States. I conducted a discourse analysis on 40 articles about U.S. women’s colleges in the corporate press from 1970 to 2015. Data analysis reveals that women’s colleges are depicted in the media as struggling for survival in our society, regardless of studies that document their strengths. They have faced and continue to face image issues, financial issues, and the reinforcement of heteronormativity throughout their history. These issues play a major role in how the media depicts them.

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Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1974. / Bibliography: leaves 132-142.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

As leadership theory continues to develop and change, so do the attempts to enhance experiences for women in higher education. Women face many obstacles, which include lack of role models in student and institutional leaders (Astin & Leland, 1991). Traditionally, institutions offer no specific leadership programs or curricula and pay minimal attention to the leadership development of their students (Cress, Astin, Zimmerman-Oster, & Burkhardt, 2001). This study was a case study with an in-depth analysis of the establishment of a women's leadership education and training program at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Six students, four administrators, and one intern were interviewed to illustrate the process of the planning of the program, its implementation and current operations, and the complexities involved. Document analysis and observations were utilized as well. The study was focused on the impact of the program on the students and administrators involved in the development of the program during this period. The researcher also described how the Batten Leadership Institute has evolved over the past five years with a focus on how it came into being, what it was like, then and now, and changes that have occurred. The findings are organized by three phases: 1) conceptualization, 2) implementation, and 3) refinement and expansion. The phases are based on a chronological framework and resulting categories and themes emerged. Results indicate the participants' described their leadership skills improved because of their participation and experience in the BLI. The Communication Skills Group and its interpersonal component as well the presence of positive female role-models created the most personal transformation for the student participants. The students' previous ideas and definitions of leadership became more comprehensive. As a result of their personal transformation, their perceptions of the BLI changed from initial uncertainty and hesitation to admiration and support. The program expanded significantly over the first five years. Programmatic challenges have been addressed and many positive changes have occurred. Hollins administrators embraced the BLI and fully supported future expansions within Hollins University and in the Roanoke community. / Ph. D.

Thesis advisor: Ana M. Martinez Aleman / Colleges and universities within the United States are continuously looking at ways to assess and measure student outcomes, academically as well as psychosocially. Student engagement measures have come to the forefront of assessment tools as a way for college administrators to determine whether their students are actively engaged in programs and activities on campus and whether this participation actually affects their retention and persistence. Women's colleges have been studied extensively as an alternative to the coeducational college environment for women. Founded on the premise of providing a higher education to an underserved population of women, women's colleges have evolved to providing an educational environment that serves to empower and enlighten their female students. However, over time, the number of women's colleges have declined through closure, merger or coeducation. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in engagement levels of female students who attended former women's colleges and those who attended historically coeducational colleges or women's colleges. Exploring the engagement levels of students attending coeducational colleges that were founded as women-only, with the corresponding woman-centric educational experience, it can be determined whether that history and commitment continue and result in an educational environment that engages women significantly more than an institution that was coeducational from its inception. Using the NSSE benchmarks, HLM and ANOVA was used to determine any relationship between time from coeducational transition or male enrollment percentage and engagement levels. Interaction effects were also explored. Results of this study reveal three conclusions. First, consistent with the literature, students attending women's colleges are reporting higher engagement levels across all benchmarks when compared to their peers attending former women's colleges and historically coeducational colleges. Second, the engagement levels of female students attending former women's colleges are split along academic and psychosocial lines. Third, consistent with the "chilly climate" literature, increasing male enrollment percentage was linked to lower reported engagement levels by women attending former women's colleges. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Higher Education Administration.

Thesis advisor: Ana M. Martínez Alemán / The contemporary American women's college boasts an illustrious history of providing superior education for women, one that leads to significantly more positive educational outcomes for women than a coeducation college experience (including graduate degree attainment, persistence in science and mathematics, and achievement of high-level positions in many career fields). Recently, a small but vocal group of students who identify as transgender and who are living as male, genderqueer, or transitioning to live as male have emerged as a visible sub-population in many highly selective women's colleges. In this qualitative, phenomenological study of the perceptions of student affairs administrators (n=31) regarding their perceptions of and experiences working with transgender students, these key facilitators of student growth and development expressed beliefs and actions that characterized them almost uniformly as supporters of transgender students. A smaller subset of participants (advocates) took decisive and change-oriented action on their campuses, resulting in a shift of policy and practice. The data indicated that there appeared to be coherence between these two identities and adherence to a philosophy of feminist and/or womanist identity and practices. By effectively navigating what one participant named `discourses of discomfort' about transgender students on campus, participants demonstrated professional identities typified by an ethics of care and social justice in their work, as well as demonstrating practices that were defined by normalizing belonging for transgender students. Implications for practice include continued attention to advancing social justice at women's colleges, enhancement of learning and teaching about transgender lives and identities at women's colleges, and increased commitment to trans-formation of coeducational college environments. Further research about transgender students' experiences at women's colleges, as alumni of women's colleges, and the effects of policy implementation regarding transgender students at women's colleges is warranted. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Menstruation is a biological process, but it is also laden with cultrual meanings that produce society's understandings of both the body and "womanhood." The experiences of those who menstruate both reveal and inform the ways that culture mediates the relationships between biology, the body, sex, and gender. This study examines the ways that students at Scripps College, a women's college in Claremont, CA, understand and experience menstruation as part of living in an environment where the majority of students identify as female. Through ethnographic interviews, I demonstrate the ways that students use menstruation to re-envision distinctions between public and private spheres, to evaluate their relationships with other people, to gain knowledge about the body, and to question what it means to claim a female identity. The discourses of menstruation at Scripps reveal that although there is a dominant construction of the women's college as an "ideal women's space," in practice students continue to adhere to sociocultural restrictions placed on the menstruating female body, even as they attempt to create a more positive discourse.