RANDOLPH-MACON WOMAN’S COLLEGE The President’s Report 2005 R-MWC At-A-Glance College Profile: Randolph-Macon Woman’s College was founded in 1891 as a private, four-year liberal arts and sciences college. The College is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and awards Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees and Master of Arts and Master of Education degrees. • Academics: We offer more than 60 majors, concentrations, and programs, most of which can be supplemented by departmental, interdisciplinary, or indepen- dently designed concentrations (minors). We also offer pre-professional programs and 3/2 cooperative career programs in nursing and engineering. • Faculty: Ninety-two percent of the R-MWC full-time faculty hold the highest degree in their fields. • Average Class Size: 12. • Student/Faculty Ratio: 9:1. • Students: Our 730 students come from 47 states, the District of Columbia, and over 45 countries and ter- ritories. Eleven percent are international, nine percent are of black/non-Hispanic descent, four percent are of Hispanic descent, and three per- cent are of Asian/Pacific Islander descent. More Facts R-MWC was the first women’s college in the south to be granted a Phi Beta Kappa charter and the first to be accredited by the American Chemical Society and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. • We rank in the top 10% of baccalaureate-granting institutions nationwide in the percentage of students who go on to earn Ph.D. degrees. This includes both public and private institutions. In Virginia, R-MWC tops all private colleges and all public institutions except William and Mary in the percentage of students who earn Ph.D. degrees. • R-MWC is a member of the International 50, a select group of the top 50 U.S. colleges and universities recognized for international programs and global awareness. These colleges serve as exemplars by providing significant resources in international scholarship and service. About the Cover: Flags representing native countries of our students are flown on campus. 1 from the president page 2 fi nancial report page 10 FROM THE PRESIDENT American Culture; greatly strengthened Asian Studies, Global Studies, College presidents in their last and the sciences; developed the Susan F. Davenport Global Leadership Program; established a vigorous program of student/faculty research; year of office are normally developed endowed professorships to bring international scholars to the engaged in reflection, assessing campus; and created programs to give faculty and students global experi- ences that have changed their lives. Our success at creating a thorough- institutional accomplishments, going international community was validated when, in October 2003, and savoring the rituals of an the College was nationally honored as an exemplar of successful global- ization. academic community for the last time. And I am doing some of that. But for the most part I am We entered the 21st century in many other ways. During this period we greatly strengthened athletics—a huge area of demand for today’s young engaged, as is everyone in the College community, in a very women given the success of Title IX. More than 60% of our entering students played at least one varsity sport in high school. We improved intense process of examining the College’s long-term future. the status of our coaching staff; developed new recruiting strategies for scholar-athletes, and built a new athletic soccer and softball field that is I find myself in a unique position—being able to look back at all that the 2 the envy of the ODAC conference. We created a first-year program that College has achieved during the past 12 years, as well as look forward to includes a major wellness component so that young women establish how the College might, over the next 10-15 years, reposition itself while good habits as soon as they enter the College gates. And we now have retaining its unique strengths and values in a rapidly changing environ- architects at work designing a new fitness and activity center to replace ment. I want to share both a reflection on the progress we’ve made and the woefully outdated 1961 PER building. a commentary on the higher education landscape for the future—the context in which our planning takes place. We also brought state-of-the-art technology to classrooms, residence halls, the library, and student social spaces. We completed a multi-mil- Over the past 12 years, we have succeeded in developing a 21st-century lion dollar facilities enhancement program, preserving the historic beau- expression of the College’s historic mission of educating and empower- ty of the College’s architecture while developing contemporary spaces ing women. We have attracted some of the brightest young women from for teaching, learning, and performance. Those renovations converted around the country and the globe to a vibrant liberal arts community an old Pines House into magnificent art studios and transformed 23 committed to excellence—one that develops leaders who can address classrooms, the Leggett Building, Smith Hall Theatre, and Presser Recital the challenges of a world in which women play an increasingly crucial Hall. And finally, we created major public programs, such as the Pearl S. role. We have increased both the diversity and quality of the student Buck Award and the annual symposium, that have raised the College’s body; developed new academic majors in Environmental Studies and public profile both regionally and nationally. All of these significant transformations were part of a strategic plan position deteriorating and our resources deployed in unwise directions. initiated upon my arrival and developed by the College community in Many institutions have made that mistake. Your alma mater will not. the mid-1990s. They have been supported by the success of the largest capital campaign in the College’s history, aptly titled “Changing Lives What does the landscape of higher education look like, for a Changing World,” which began with a goal of $75 million and will and how is it already affecting R-MWC? As an editorial conclude this June with a total of $100 million. comment, let me say that I am personally dismayed by some of the cur- rent societal trends, but as a College community we must nonetheless So here we are: a College with an astonishing track record of producing confront their reality. bright and successful graduates; strong and vibrant academic programs; an endowment of $133 million; and the largest campaign in the Col- DECLINE IN DEMAND FOR PRIVATE WOMEN’S COLLEGES lege’s history with current receipts and commitments of more than $98 AND LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES. This is an era in which the vast million. Why, given all of this, did the Board of Trustees see fit to begin a majority of students are looking for large, public, co-educational, and process that has resulted in market research, valuation of College assets, professionally-oriented institutions, often in or near large metropolitan even a study of the possibility of going co-ed? areas. How is R-MWC experiencing this trend? Every year we identify the top ten institutions with whom we share applicants—what we call As many of you have put it, “How can all of these our “overlap” institutions. Over the past decade, that list has changed sig- nificantly. Over time there have been fewer and fewer women’s colleges, 3 wonderful things be going on at the College, and fewer and fewer liberal arts colleges, and more and more public institu- suddenly we learn that there are major challenges tions on the list. This year, seven of our top ten overlap institutions were to address?” public, co-educational institutions—the highest number ever. When the Art & Science Group conducted its market research on Inquir- The answer lies in the dramatic changes in both the marketplace and the ers (those prospective students who had requested information about the economics of higher education that have been developing over the last College), they found that not a single private college was named as the decade and are now being felt keenly by small private liberal arts col- preferred college of those surveyed. In that same Inquirer data, co-educa- leges, and particularly women’s colleges. tion was a factor three times as powerful as any other in explaining respon- dents’ preferred schools. Moreover, nearly half of our admitted applicants We are not an institution in financial crisis. We have the financial re- (those who completed the application process at R-MWC and were sources and talent to sustain us for quite some time. But, given the notified of their admission) said they preferred co-education. Those of you market forces I am about to describe, you will see the Board’s wisdom with daughters, granddaughters, or nieces understand this trend toward in engaging in long-term planning now, with the College in a position of co-education very well. It is very difficult to persuade a 17-year-old to strength, rather than waiting 8 or 10 years with the risk of our market seriously consider a women’s college. continued on page 4 FROM THE PRESIDENT Some think it occurs only in the arts and humanities, continued from page 3 rather than in the sciences… Seventeen-year-old high school students now believe, For some students, a liberal education is one that is whether it is true or not, that their empowerment politically skewed to the left. As one college student put it, it is “education directed toward alternative methods, has already occurred—through single-gender K-12 education often political in nature.” or through single-gender math and science classes in public schools, or because they naively believe that their voices will be heard in co- Whether the pendulum will eventually swing back to women’s colleges, educational classrooms and that equal opportunities await them in the small private liberal arts colleges, and colleges in settings away from big workplace.