UVA and the Debate Over a Coordinate College Before 1920 (PAVS 4500 student paper, spring 2018)

By Sophia Bandurco (History Major, Curry School BAMT 2020)

In December 1915, the ruling body of the University of Virginia, the Board of Visitors, met and discussed the needs of the University for the upcoming year in preparation for the Board’s presentation to the Virginia Legislature. The Board included the establishment of a co-ordinate Women’s College as one of these “needs.”¹ After years of advocacy in favor of a Women’s College by President Edwin Alderman and Mary Munford, a progressive education reformer from Richmond, the Board passed a resolution in support of the establishment of a co-ordinate college. The Board believed the “conditions of modern life” rendered it “essential” for women to have the opportunity to be educated on level ground with men.² Furthermore, the BOV ruled that the most efficient mode of meeting this need was constructing a Women’s College opposite of the current University Grounds. The Board believed white women should have access to an equitable education without infringing on Mr. Jefferson’s University.³ A co-ordinate college represented the perfect solution for the Board. The University of Virginia itself remained an autonomous, all-male institution while a Women’s College operated close-by and provided female students with access to the same University professors, libraries and laboratory equipment. The only shared space between the two institutions would be the libraries and science labs. A co-ordinate college fulfilled the Board of Visitors progressive goals while maintaining the traditions of the University.

After the Board passed the resolution to establish a co-ordinate college, they directed the matter be addressed at the next meeting of the Virginia General Assembly. Because the University of Virginia was a public institution, the state needed to give its permission to the University to allow the co-ordinate college to be built. President Alderman, the Board of Visitors, the Rector Armistead C. Gordon, and several University faculty members professed support for a Women’s College. Alderman wrote a letter to Senator Strode of the Virginia General Assembly asserting that “there is no use to try to refute the necessity for the training and the higher training of women. They have been neglected: they are necessary to civilization; they are at its core.”⁴ Even though Alderman viewed women as “necessary to civilization,” he maintained the opinion that women should not have access to full co-education — and other supporters shared this idea. Full co-education at the University required women be equal to men inside and outside the classroom.⁵ Alderman believed that it would be “unfair” to require a storied men’s college to change its character so radically. Further, he argued that women needed a different kind of education than men — an education more suited for ‘womanly careers,’ like teaching. Contrary to the modern understanding of equality, Alderman thought that that true co-education would ultimately disadvantage women and favor men. Instead, the proposed co-ordinate college would maintain the appropriate distinctions between men and women, yet allow women equal access to an equitable education with t[1] he “advantages in economy of administration, equipment, instruction, and traditions” of the University of Virginia.⁶ A co-ordinate college was superior to both an independent Women’s College or complete co-education because it avoided the “weakness of segregation” and the “disadvantages of co-education.”⁷ To Alderman, the establishment of a co-ordinate Women’s College represented the perfect balance between progressivism in education and the masculine tradition of the University.

Following the BOV’s ruling in 1915, the students at the University of Virginia mounted a fierce resistance against the establishment of a co-ordinate Women’s College in Charlottesville. In editorials and news articles written for the student newspaper, College Topics, as well as newspapers around Virginia, students and alumni argued vehemently against the establishment of a co-ordinate college. A massive majority of students rejected the idea that a co-ordinate college would be beneficial to the University. Instead, the students claimed that such a college would create an unjust economic burden on the state and University as well as violate the sacred traditions of Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the University. The students viewed the inclusion of women into Jefferson’s academic community as repugnant — even though the proposed Women’s College would operate separately from the main University. The Women’s College would not share the same name or be located on Grounds, and would only be loosely associated with the University of Virginia. However, even a loose association with a Women’s College garnered a negative response from student body at the University. The students had historically opposed the creation of a co-ordinate Women’s College in Charlottesville. The 1914 edition of Corks and Curls, the University yearbook, featured a crude comic and poem depicting women who advocated for co-ordination as whorish. The poem, written by an anonymous student posing as a professor ended with the sentiment that he would rather die than teach women. (Figure 1) With only a few outliers, alumni, professors and Charlottesville residents agreed with the student body and wholeheartedly rejected the idea of the establishment of a co-ordinate Women’s College.⁸

Students, professors and alumni from across the state of Virginia believed that the presence of a Women’s College would infringe on the University’s traditions and values. One alumni chapter wrote that the establishment of a women’s college would “create an atmosphere alien to its traditions, alternative of its characteristics, and imperrilling certain sources of its strength”⁹ A Women’s College would violate and threaten the ‘tradition’ of the hyper-masculine atmosphere that had dominated the University since its inception. University students echoed the sentiments of alumni and wrote that a Women’s College would damage the “masculine strength” of the University that had distinguished it from other state schools in the past.¹⁰ Thomas Jefferson created the University to be a male dominated institution — he did not include any policies to educate women in his initial plan for the University. Alumni and students clung to the ideal that male dominance made the University elite.  Any association with women would be damaging to the University’s reputation as well as an insult to the alumni of the University.¹¹

Alumni from all over the state of Virginia wrote in to College Topics to denounce the establishment of a Women’s College[2] .¹² Alumni and students also clung to the idea that a co-ordinate college would create an unjust economic burden on both the University of Virginia itself and the state of Virginia.The Norfolk-Portsmouth Alumni chapter criticized the proposed Women’s College and wrote that its establishment would “prove a source of great expense to the State” as well as violate the traditions of the University. ¹³ The alumni believed, in the short term, that the physical building of the College would be a drain on University resources and money. The long term effects of the co-ordinate college were even more dangerous. A co-ordinate college at the University of Virginia meant that Virginia would be required to provide funding for another state school – further draining money from public education funding. Alumni believed that an additional state institution would reallocate funds away from the University proper and to the Women’s College. Another state school also added an extra burden on other state institutions, like V.M.I. or William and Mary, because it diminished the money appropriated for individual institutions. The economic health of Virginia represented a major concern to the alumni and students, especially in early 1916 when the General Assembly debated about the prohibition of the sale of alcohol.¹⁴ The potential prohibition of alcohol worried citizens[3]  because the state taxed alcohol, and its prohibition meant the loss of a major revenue source. Virginians feared this loss of revenue would damage the state’s economy – and an additional public college to fund would further drain the state’s economic resources. Students believed that a women’s college would create a financial burden on the University and the State, and that this burden would be ultimately unmanageable.

The alumni also suggested that if the state had any extraneous funds were available that could potentially serve the co-ordinate college, they should be appropriated for the Department of Public Education which was in “serious need of additional funds,” rather than establish a co-ordinate college.¹⁵ During the early twentieth century, public education in Virginia underwent a shift. Pedagogy experts, like University President Alderman, started placing a larger emphasis on the education and training of teachers.¹⁶ In fact, one of Alderman’s first initiatives as president was to create an academic school specifically denoted for pedagogy and teacher instruction. Completed in the summer of 1905, the Curry Memorial School of Education served the all-male student body during the academic year, and operated ‘summer-school’ programs for women during the summer.¹⁷ The establishment of these summer-school programs helped pave the way for President Alderman and Mary Munford, a Richmond activist, to call-on the Board of Visitors to vote on the matter of a Co-ordinate College in 1915.

 Students and alumni claimed a multitude of times that a Co-ordinate Women’s College established near the grounds of the University proper would violate the traditions of the University. [4] This ‘violation of tradition’ would be the breach in the historically male-dominated University and the erosion of values as a result of this breach.  Professor Raleigh Colston Minor suggested the establishment of a co-ordinate college would be a “disaster” to the University.¹⁸  Many of the detractors worried about the establishment of a coordinate college within walking distance from the University proper. A co-ordinate college mere steps from Grounds would have encouraged unnecessary commingling between the sexes and, the students argued, force the University to function as a de facto co-educational institution. Ultimately, the students feared a co-ordinate college would lead to co-education — despite Alderman and other’s assurances that this would not be the case. Co-education would “rob this institution [UVA] of all that in a hundred years of splendid service to the people of this country has distinguished it from its fellow state universities” and the undergraduate and graduate students wholeheartedly rejected it.¹⁹

 By mid-January 1916 – less than a month after the Board of Visitors had moved to support the establishment of  a co-ordinate college, the student body of the University had reached a point of hysteria.  The students argued that co-education would be the inevitable result of a co-ordinate college, and aggressively lobbied the state legislature to reject the Houston-Willis bill which provided for the establishment of a co-ordinate college at the University of Virginia.²⁰ Because of the ‘inevitability’ of co-education associated with a co-ordinate college, a committee of students from the University Law Department resolved that the undergraduates of the University would reject a co-ordinate college without contest.²¹ In a lengthy editorial published by College Topics, staff writers argued that co-education would be “fatal” to the University. College Topics printed twice a week, and each new issue featured numerous opinion and news articles regarding the co-ordinate college. Student activism was at an all-time high.  The students railed against the establishment of a co-ordinate college so strongly that seven hundred students, the vast majority of the student body, signed an anti-co-ordination resolution following an anti-co-ordination rally held in Old Cabell Hall.The resolution stated that a Women’s College would irreparably damage the masculine strength of the University, insult the alumni, cause male students to stop attending the University and that the proposed co-ordination really amounted to the “unanimously conceded evil of co-education.”²²[5] 

On the heels of the hysteria of the student body, the General Assembly debated the Houston-Willis Bill to establish a co-ordinate college at the University of Virginia in late January. Student protest and activism against the Bill provided a vignette of their resentment of the idea of a Women’s College. However, select of the public, students and alumni supported a co-ordinate college.

Philip Alexander Bruce, a prominent and respected alumni of the University, wrote an op-ed to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper challenging Professor Minor’s assertions that a co-ordinate college would be a ‘disaster.’ He wrote,

The inference of this would seem to be that our daughters are lower in their moral and intellectual standards than our sons … Then this dignity (of the University) must be a pretty delicate plant if it can be weathered by the proximity of so pure a thing as our refined young Southern womanhood²³

Bruce challenged the idea that a co-ordinate college would negatively impact the traditional values and strengths of the University. He argued that women were intellectual equals of men, and their inclusion into the broader University community would ultimately benefit the University by furthering the ideals and values of the institution. Bruce wholeheartedly rejected the idea that women would bring ‘disaster’ to the University, and referred to the students, faculty and alumni who believed this as “provincial.” He wrote, “I  am in favor of training women for every pursuit in life, if only to make them more independent of those citizens who profess to think that their mere proximity as students is the cause of disaster to the ideals and dignity of our male seats of learning.”²⁴ Philip Alexander Bruce was a noted alumni of the University, who had been contracted to write the Centennial History of U.Va. People across the state of Virginia knew him and respected him. His brazen attack on Professor Minor represents how high the tensions between the alumni and students were over this matter.

Some state Senators, professors and alumni of the University supported Bruce’s claims. Professor Ormond Stone gave a speech in defense of the higher education of women, citing it as a necessary advancement for the University.  In his speech he debunked several myths about the dangers of educating women, including the idea that they were not smart enough to succeed in a college curriculum, that higher education “lowers the womanliness of a woman,” negatively affected a woman’s health, and that the establishment of public women’s colleges would interfere with the state’s men’s colleges. Stone argued that it was becoming increasingly necessary to educate women because the majority of elementary and high school teachers were women.²⁵ To him, a co-ordinate college provided for the higher education of women, which in turn, directly benefited the state’s children. Echoing President Alderman’s beliefs, Stone argued that better educated teachers provided a better education for Virginia students. ²⁶

Other Supporters of the co-ordinate college relied on more basic arguments in their editorials. The main argument contended that because women were taxed without regard to sex, they should have an equal opportunity as men to attend a publicly funded College or University. Advocates asserted that because both men and women paid taxes, it was the constitutional right of women to “attain the highest development faculties and moral character” at a publicly funded College.²⁷  The Houston-Willis bill, proposed in the Virginia House of Delegates, echoed this argument directly. Women had a constitutional right to attend a state funded college because their tax dollars contributed to the running of state colleges. The bill further stipulated that it was a “public duty” to enact this legislation.²⁸ The legislators believed that supporting the higher education of women upheld the moral and ethical integrity of the state, and that educating women on equal grounds was more than a requirement, but a duty. Anonymous letters written to the Charlottesville Daily Progress and Richmond-Times dispatch echoed this sense of obligation to forward progressive goals. An anonymous contributor wrote to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in support of a co-ordinate college on the grounds that a state university “must be accessible to all the influences of modern democracy … [it] must be open to all the people and have the confidence of all the people and not of a part of the people.”²⁹ This individual argued that a modern democracy required a modern university, and a precondition of modernization was the inclusion of women in higher education.

Despite the arguments of the proponents for a co-ordinate college, the Houston-Willis bill failed to pass the Virginia House of Delegates in March 1916. The bill had initially passed in the Senate on March 1st by a vote of 19 to 17, but it lost in the House of Delegates by two votes later that week.³⁰ After the bill failed “cheer after cheer sprang up from different parts of the House and the gallery.”³¹ The lobbying and protest of University students successfully stopped the bill from being passed. The students at the University jubilantly expressed their sympathies to the supporters of the bill, writing that they had been “unconcerned” over the matter. However, the bill was defeated in the House by a vote of 48 to 46 – a margins so close, that advocates considered it a ‘victory.’³² Despite the failure of the bill, Mary Munford – one of the main activists advocating for a co-ordinate college – promised that “the co-ordinate college is absolutely a won because – they victory is only delayed for two years.”³³ The fight for the establishment of a co-ordinate college at the University continued on for the next thirty years. Three decades after students vehemently denounced the establishment of a Women’s College in Charlottesville the Board of Visitors designated Mary Washington College as the University’s co-ordinate Women’s College.³⁴ Mary Washington had existed as a ‘normal’ college for women in the early twentieth century, and an operated as an independent Women’s College until the University took it over. The legacy of student disapproval underpinned the decision to make Mary Washington the women’s college. Mary Washington College (now University) is located in Fredericksburg, over one hundred miles away from the University proper. There would be no danger of the student’s ultimate fear coming to fruition, co-ordination would never morph into co-education.[6]  A true co-ordinate college at the University of Virginia never truly existed. Mary Washington College was located too far away to benefit directly from its association with the University – one of the original intentions of co-ordination.  Throughout the twentieth century, students were hesitant and blatantly rejected any idea to violate or change the masculine tradition of the University. The University of Virginia did not allow women to enter its undergraduate programs until 1970, when finally, women had access to an equal education.

Endnotes

1.  Board of Visitors Minutes, 46. Accessed in http://juel.iath.virginia.edu/node/343?doc=/juel_display/BOV/1910/bov_19151228 on March 10 2018.

2. Board of Visitors Minutes, 46. Accessed in http://juel.iath.virginia.edu/node/343?doc=/juel_display/BOV/1910/bov_19151228 on March 10 2018.

3. Board of Visitors Minutes, 46. Accessed in http://juel.iath.virginia.edu/node/343?doc=/juel_display/BOV/1910/bov_19151228 on March 10 2018.

4. Letter, Edwin Alderman to Senator Aubrey Strode, Correspondence Sm-Sw, Box 5, Folder 8, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

5.  Speech, Edwin Alderman, 1911 May Speech concerning the establishment of a college for the education of women, by the state of Virginia, preferably a Co-ordinate College located near the University and controlled by it, Box 20, Folder 15, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

6.  Speech, Edwin Alderman, 1911 May Speech concerning the establishment of a college for the education of women, by the state of Virginia, preferably a Co-ordinate College located near the University and controlled by it, Box 20, Folder 15, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

7.  Speech, Edwin Alderman, 1911 May Speech concerning the establishment of a college for the education of women, by the state of Virginia, preferably a Co-ordinate College located near the University and controlled by it, Box 20, Folder 15, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

8.  College Topics. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia, 1890.

9. Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia Alumni. “Alumni Denounces Co-Ordination Bill.” College topics, February 19, 1916.

10. Pankey, A.V. “Seven Hundred Sign New Resolutions.” College Topics, January 29, 1916.

11. Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia Alumni. “Alumni Denounces Co-Ordination Bill.” College topics, February 19, 1916.

12.  Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia Alumni. “Alumni Denounces Co-Ordination Bill.” College topics, February 19, 1916.

13. Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia Alumni. “Alumni Denounces Co-Ordination Bill.” College topics, February 19, 1916.

14.  Alcohol was officially banned in Virginia on October 31, 1916.

15. Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia Alumni. “Alumni Denounces Co-Ordination Bill.” College topics, February 19, 1916.

16.  Dumas Malone. Edwin A. Alderman: A Biography. 201. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1940.

17.  Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va. Box 5:8 Correspondence Sm-Sw 

18.  Philip Alexander Bruce. “Mr. Bruce on Co-ordinate College.” The Virginian, February 12, 1916.

19.  Editor of College Topics. “Anti-Co-Ordination – – An Editorial.” College Topics. January 26, 1916.

20. A Bill to Authorize and Require the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia to Establish and Maintain a Co-ordinate College, 314, Virginia House of Delegates Cong. (1916).

21. W.G. Maupin, H.L. Spratt, W.L. May, W.A. Schmitt, R.C. Moyston. “Resolutions will be submitted tonight.” College Topics. January 26, 1916.

22. W.G. Maupin, H.L. Spratt, W.L. May, W.A. Schmitt, R.C. Moyston. “Resolutions will be submitted tonight.” College Topics. January 26, 1916.

23.   Philip Alexander Bruce. “Mr. Bruce on Co-ordinate College.” The Virginian, February 12, 1916. In Box 22, folder 5 of Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

24.   Philip Alexander Bruce. “Mr. Bruce on Co-ordinate College.” The Virginian, February 12, 1916. In Box 22, folder 5 of Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

25.   Speech, Ormond Stone, The Higher Education of Virginia Women, Box 20, Folder 8, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

26.   Speech, Ormond Stone, The Higher Education of Virginia Women, Box 20, Folder 8, Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

27. A Bill to Authorize and Require the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia to Establish and Maintain a Co-ordinate College, 314, Virginia House of Delegates Cong. (1916).

28. A Bill to Authorize and Require the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia to Establish and Maintain a Co-ordinate College, 314, Virginia House of Delegates Cong. (1916).

29.  Editor of College Topics. “Anti-Co-Ordination – – An Editorial.” College Topics. January 26, 1916.

30.  News Editor of College Topics. “Co-Ordination Wins in Virginia Senate.” College Topics. Marcy 4, 1916.

31. News Editor of Richmond-Times Dispatch. “House Rejects Women’s College Bill 48-46.” The Richmond-Times Dispatch, March 8, 1916.

32. News Editor of Richmond-Times Dispatch. “House Rejects Women’s College Bill 48-46.” The Richmond-Times Dispatch, March 8, 1916.

33. News Editor of Richmond-Times Dispatch. “House Rejects Women’s College Bill 48-46.” The Richmond-Times Dispatch, March 8, 1916.

34. A Bill to Authorize and Require the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia to Establish and Maintain a Co-ordinate College, 314, Virginia House of Delegates Cong. (1916).

Figure 1

University of Virginia and University of Virginia School of Law. Corks & Curls. Barrister ed. [Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia], 1914.

Bibliography

A Bill to Authorize and Require the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia to Establish and Maintain a Co-ordinate College, 314, Virginia House of Delegates Cong. (1916).

College Topics. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia, 1890.

University of Virginia and University of Virginia School of Law. Corks & Curls. Barrister ed. [Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia], 1914.

Eaton, Lorraine. “Virginia’s Prohibition History.” Virginian-Pilot. November 30, 2008. Accessed April 2018. https://pilotonline.com/news/local/article_20b31552-ad56-5547-aacb-f3524f731ae1.html

Malone, Dumas. Edwin A. Alderman: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1940.

Papers of Edwin A. Alderman, Accession #1001, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Richmond Dispatch. Richmond, Va: Dispatch Co, 1884.