The coordinate college system helps Richmond men and Westhampton women achieve their full potential.
Richmond College graduated its first men in 1849. Fifty years later, it graduated its first woman—Lulie Gaines Winston, R1899. “She stands first in all her classes,” the yearbook admitted. “It makes the rest of us feel a little bad to say this, but the truth must [come] out.”
Dr. Frederic Boatwright, R1888, president of Richmond College at the time, was a strong advocate of women’s education. He initially favored coeducation over coordinate education, but he encountered opposition to the college’s new policy of admitting women.
Meanwhile, the Virginia Baptists proposed building a separate college “for the highest education of women.” They asked John D. Rockefeller’s General Education Board for seed money, but Boatwright already had approached Rockefeller’s organization for money to expand Richmond College. So F.T. Gates, president of the General Education Board, invited both groups to New York to consider a compromise.
“If you are to have two institutions, one for men and one for women, located in the same city and depending for financial support on the same constituency, the situation would not appeal to us,” Gates stated. “If instead of two boards of management, you will commit both of these enterprises to one board … the situation would greatly interest us.”
Gates’ words were recorded by R.H. Pitt, R1876, champion of a separate women’s college. During the 100th anniversary celebration of the University of Richmond, Pitt and Boatwright agreed that their meeting with Gates was one of the most important events in the University’s history. The coordinate college system was born.
The campus was an amusement park in 1904, the year May Keller received her Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg.
May Keller
The General Education Board agreed to contribute $150,000 if the Virginia Baptists would match it with $350,000. Even though Boatwright originally favored coeducation, he worked diligently to raise the money to open a coordinate college for women.
It took seven years to scrape together the funds. In the meantime, Boatwright found a site for both colleges in the Westhampton area west of Richmond. Then he looked for a dean.
“Boatwright was instructed to find a woman who held a doctorate and was a Baptist,” wrote Pauline Turnbull in her biography of Dr. May Keller. That left only two qualified candidates south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Keller was the obvious choice.
She was an English professor at Goucher College and the immediate past president of the Southern Association of College Women. Keller had earned a Ph.D. in Germanic philology from the University of Heidelberg, where she completed her doctoral dissertation in “Anglo-Saxon Weapons.” She stood just four feet, 10 inches tall, but she was armed with keen intellect, high expectations, and indomitable spirit.
“On Sept. 17, 1914, Westhampton College welcomed her first student, and Dr. Boatwright’s dream became Miss Keller’s responsibility,” wrote Claire Millhiser Rosenbaum, W’54 and G’73, in A Gem of a College. “Miss Keller knew exactly what she wanted.” She established exceptionally high standards that forced students to “stretch mentally and physically to achieve their maximum potential.”
Keller was equally demanding of Boatwright and the University’s Board of Trustees. She advocated equal pay for female professors, and she decried disparities between the colleges, such as the lack of a library and gymnasium on the Westhampton side of the lake.
During salary negotiations in 1920, Boatwright warned Keller that the trustees did not like her “tendency to make demands rather than to state needs.” They also accused her of stirring up the alumnae whenever she disagreed with the board’s decisions.
Keller stood her ground. “I do not consider the criticism of the trustees just in any particular, but recognize the fact that they have never considered women as having a right to express an opinion of their own,” she shot back. One day later, the board raised her salary.
During her 32-year tenure as dean, Keller created a college that instilled a progressive spirit in its students. She viewed women’s education as the foundation that would empower women to compete on an equal footing with men.
Current Dean Juliette Landphair tries to infuse a little bit of May Keller into all Westhampton College students. The history of the college is vital, she says. “Recognizing the progressive nature of the Westhampton experience since 1914 helps us shape what we want for our students today.”
May Day
As a teenager, Jackie Kilby Brooks, W’55, was determined not to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her mother, Eva Ellis Kilby, graduated from Westhampton College in 1921, so Brooks would have to attend college elsewhere—perhaps Duke, she fantasized.
“But my mother was a very smart woman,” Brooks recalls. “She brought me to Westhampton College in 1951 to see the May Day celebration, and after that, I changed my mind.”
Brooks was mesmerized by the traditions she witnessed—the May Pole Dance, the May Court, and the Daisy Chain. “The whole Westhampton campus was dedicated to this event, and everyone was involved,” she says.
During her four years at Westhampton, Brooks enjoyed the camaraderie that developed among her classmates. “We were a cohesive group, a small class, the last of the Depression babies,” she recalls. Together with their big sisters from the Class of 1953, they competed against the sophomores and seniors in everything from athletic events to song contests.
“We had no solo voices in our class,” she notes, “and I think that’s why we did so well in the song contests. Our voices blended together.” They won the event three years in a row./p>
Proclamation Night was another tradition that impressed Brooks. She does not recall writing a letter to herself—as current Westhampton students do—but she clearly remembers signing the honor pledge. “I felt very proud to be in a system where you had to not only look out for yourself but for everyone else as well.”
Westhampton’s tradition of self-government was especially important to Brooks. “It taught me to take responsibility then and as an adult,” she says. “It helped me become aware of who I am and accept who I am.” (See Vantage Point by Ellen Bradley, W’91.)
As for the coordinate college system, Brooks says it was the best of both worlds. “Westhampton was like going to a women’s college with the benefit of having the men across the lake.”
Will Power
Brooks majored in math—taking many courses on the “men’s side” of the lake. Her first job was with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a precursor to NASA, working with first-generation IBM computers.
Westhampton Center
The Robins Foundation recently awarded a $3 million grant to help construct a new building adjacent to the existing Westhampton College Deanery that will serve as the foundation for the Westhampton Center project.
The project includes the existing Deanery, the new building, and a range of new programs and resources specially designed to meet the needs of women students. The gift will allow the University to move forward with the new building, while it continues to raise funds to support the new services.
“For nearly 40 years, the Robins family has stepped forward with remarkable generosity at pivotal moments in the University’s history,” says President Edward L. Ayers. “I am deeply grateful for the Robins family’s extraordinary leadership and support, which will foster the continued vitality of Westhampton College.”
The total cost of constructing the Westhampton Center and offering new programs is $10 million. With the Robins Foundation grant, the total raised for the project now exceeds $4.5 million in gifts from nearly 150 donors, including both Westhampton alumnae and students. The new building is scheduled for completion in 2010.
IBM hired her in 1956, and she embarked upon a 31-year career with Big Blue, advancing steadily from consulting to managing to strategic planning. “I was among the first women to hold some of those positions,” she says. “The training I received at Westhampton College gave me the ability to hold my own in a male-dominated world.”
Even without May Keller in charge, courses at Westhampton College were more demanding than classes at Richmond College. So when the colleges completed their academic merger in 1978, Brooks was disappointed. But she viewed the change as a tough business decision.
“I try to see why things are done, and finances are usually the bottom point in most decisions,” she says. “I suppose they had to do that.”
Soon after the merger, Brooks helped Westhampton College secure funding from IBM to start a program called WILL (Women Involved in Living and Learning). Westhampton established the program to preserve single-sex academic opportunities for women and to help students build self-confidence.
“WILL students tend to graduate, as one alumna said, with the perspective of a 40-year-old woman,” Landphair notes. “That means that you are more sure of yourself, you are more confident, you understand that you have strong relationships, but you realize you have to pay attention to yourself a little bit.”
The program currently serves about 100 women and has been replicated by Duke and other universities nationwide. It includes coursework for a minor in women, gender, and sexuality studies plus co-curricular activities that delve into issues related to women, gender, and diversity. Promoting inclusive diversity is an overarching priority for Westhampton College and Richmond College.
Gender Matters
Today the coordinate college system helps each student realize his or her highest potential in an environment that is attentive to gender differences.
The colleges maintain separate dean’s offices, student governments, traditions, gender-based programming, and residence life offices.
“You get a lot of personal attention from the different deans’ offices,” says Drew Howell, ’10, a Richmond College senator. “The people in the deans’ offices really know you.”
The same is true of the resident assistants, says Howell, who is an RA in Dennis Hall. Resident assistants in each college are attuned to gender-related issues. “Men have more policy problems, such as discipline or alcohol,” he says. “Women have more emotional problems, such as eating disorders.” Each college’s professional staff also is specially trained to recognize and respond to gender-related problems.
“The argument you hear increasingly is: ‘Women don’t need this stuff anymore. They are doing better than the guys. They make better grades,’” Landphair says. “The reality is gender still matters for things like self-confidence. Gender still matters in terms of relationship violence and sexual assault. Gender still matters in terms of women going into traditional and nontraditional fields.”
Westhampton responds to evolving developmental needs, Landphair notes, and it “continues to promote students’ intellectual and leadership skills in ways conceptualized by Dean Keller decades ago.”
Bridget Needham, ’08, says Westhampton College has had a profound impact on her life. “It is empowering to be in an organization composed entirely of women,” she says. “We talk a lot about being strong women and standing up for what we really feel is important.”/
As president of the Westhampton College Government Association, Needham has benefitted from the extra leadership opportunities of separate student governments. For other students, the most empowering aspects of the coordinate college system might be a gender-related program, a strong role model in the dean’s office, a single-sex discussion group, or all of the above./
Student development varies by student, but common themes emerge. “Men and women mature differently,” says Joe Boehman, dean of Richmond College. “First-year women tend to come in more focused on what they want to do in life. Most men aren’t there yet, but they catch up quickly—usually by their junior or senior year. … What I try to do is connect them with their passion and then connect that passion to a career path or at least an avocation.”/
Boehman also challenges Richmond College students to consider the developmental aspects of what it means to be a man.
“That’s a tougher sell to the men,” he laughs. “They think we’re going to run around in the woods lighting fires and sharpening sticks.”
The RC Xtreme program offers rugged, outdoor experiences to first-year men, but students also may choose a more academic approach. Howell, for example, helped organize a program called “Men in the Media: Examining Masculinity.” He and 30 fellow residents of Dennis Hall studied how movies such as the The Matrix and television shows such as Lost use various stereotypes to portray men.
Lake Effect
Five years ago, the University began housing men and women on both sides of the lake, and alumni expressed concern that Westhampton College and Richmond College were losing their identities.
The University was responding to consistent complaints—mostly from female students—that the men’s residence halls were closer to the library, the Robins Center, and the majority of classrooms and professors’ offices. Their complaints were remarkably similar to those filed by May Keller in the 1920s, but the 21st century solution was not to replicate facilities on both sides of the lake. Instead, the University gave male and female students more housing options on either side.
“Until then, many students blamed the coordinate college system for limiting social opportunities with the opposite sex,” Landphair says. “Now they are more willing to embrace the coordinate college system—not as two residential colleges—but as a way to connect and enhance their curricular and co-curricular experiences.”
Single-sex residence halls remain prevalent, but the University now offers coed housing options. That pleases students and prospective students, but it concerns many alumni.
“As a student, I probably wouldn’t have cared one way or the other,” says John Moreau, R’64 and G’71. “But now, as a father and grandfather, it worries me.”
Sharing similar concerns, the University requires first-year students to live in single-sex dorms, and it promotes single-sex housing for older students as well.
“There is a benefit to having your own space, where you can be you,” says Boehman in defense of all-male residence halls. “If you need coed housing to meet women, then you seriously need to work on your game.”
Boehman, however, reminds students and alumni that the coordinate college system is not about bricks and mortar. It’s about helping students mature into strong men and strong women.
“The coordinate college system is changing and adapting to meet the challenges of 21st century college students,” he says. “We are not losing the coordinate college system even though we now have men and women living on the same side of the lake.”
RC Traditions
Students and alumni may disagree about housing arrangements, but they share a deep appreciation for the coordinate college system.
“It is part of the University that people don’t know about coming in, but it’s a big part of our identity,” Howell says. “It’s more than just a tradition.”
Westhampton College’s Proclamation Night and Richmond College’s Investiture are among the most vital traditions of the two colleges.
The unique traditions of each college, however, are vital to passing on the coordinate college system to each new generation.
“One of the University’s most enduring traditions is Richmond College itself,” Boehman says. “Our alumni express this tradition as fellowship among a handful of lifelong friends or a connection with a faculty member or an administrator.”
For Moreau, the best Richmond College tradition has been the strength of its deans over the years. Former Dean Clarence Gray introduced Moreau to his current wife, and the deans who followed him—Dr. Richard Mateer, Dr. Steve Bisese, and Dr. Joe Boehman—are “so special,” he says. “They are caring people and strong male role models.”
New traditions include Richmond College’s Living and Learning programs. These programs give freshmen the opportunity to live with fellow first-year men who share common interests such as leadership (Spinning Your Web), outdoor adventure (RC Xtreme), international culture (Explore UR World), and the arts (RC ArtStart).
Men are inducted into Richmond College during a ceremony called Investiture. The Richmond College Student Government Association president carries the University’s mace in a procession that leads to the chapel, where freshmen sign the honor pledge and listen to speeches by representatives of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes.
WC Traditions
Women are inducted into Westhampton College during Proclamation Night. They sign the honor pledge and write letters to themselves about their expectations for the next three years. They return at the beginning of their senior year to read those letters and to initiate the incoming class.
“Students feel varying degrees of affinity for Westhampton College, but it really sinks in for seniors at Proclamation Night,” Needham says. “We have our class picture taken about an hour before the ceremony, and you get a sense that we are all part of the Westhampton community.”
Signing the honor pledge.
Another important tradition is Ring Dance, a rite of passage for Westhampton juniors, who are escorted down the grand staircase of the Jefferson Hotel to form a giant W on the rotunda floor.
Each Westhampton class puts its stamp on the college’s traditions, but some Westhampton traditions—such as “ratting” first-year students—are gone for good. (Ratting was generally good-natured hazing perpetrated by sophomores.) “And I haven’t heard anything recently about panty raids at Westhampton College,” laughs Moreau. “We had a lot of fun with that—until they brought in the police dogs.”
Other Westhampton traditions—such as the daisy chain—have been incorporated into Ring Dance and Proclamation Night.
“I know that May Day has really changed,” says Brooks of the tradition that first attracted her to Westhampton College. The spring celebration is now called Bellisfest. (Bellis is the latin word for daisy.) And instead of the May Court—which was one-part beauty contest—students elect a Leadership Court.
That is good news to Moreau. “What a wonderful way to keep the tradition,” he says, “by doing something better with it.”
Send comments about this story to krhodes@richmond.edu.
