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Peace College, a Women’s Institution in North Carolina, Will Go Fully Coed in 2012

July 21, 2011, 4:29 pm

Peace College, a century-and-a-half-old women’s college in Raleigh, N.C., said today that it would begin to educate men as full-time students in the 2012-13 academic year. Men already attend the college’s evening and online classes. The decision to open up the four-year college to men and change its name to William Peace University is one of several intended to bolster the institution’s flagging finances, WRAL.com reported. Debra M. Townsley, the college’s president, told WRAL that only 2 percent of female high-school seniors consider education at women’s colleges, limiting Peace College’s applicant pool. “Some single-gender classes will continue to be offered once male students arrive on campus … in disciplines where research shows that women and men learn differently and that each benefit from a single-gender classroom,” WRAL.com reported.

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  • jffoster

    The news blurb above leaves, willy nilly, the impression that Peace College officials thinks that making the college coed will make it a university.  Is the article misleading or are Peace College officials really idiots who actually think that having students of both sexes makes a college a university? 

  • Dallas Thompson

    In the state of North Carolina, graduate offerings are not required to be named a University. College officials are free to file for a name change with the Secretary of State (which they have done). 

  • CU_Alum

    The blurb says only that both changes are happening at the same time.  It does not say that the institution thinks going co-ed makes it a university, just as t doesn’t say they think becoming a university makes them go coed.

  • tptrekker

    I doubt the legality of the institution’s intention reported in the last sentence of the article. Opening access only to the evening division and/or to online offerings is one thing. Shutting out people of a particular sex from particular classes after a university has gone fully coeducational is quite another, and I suspect that is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

  • jffoster

    You can call an aardvark an artichoke too, but that doesn’t make it one.  The sentence in the CHE blurb reads

    “The decision to open up the four-year college to men and change its name to William Peace University is one of several intended to bolster the institution’s flagging finances, …”

    That certainly admits of the interpretation about I asked about, which is why I asked.   Maybe it’s the Chronicle of Higher Education that no longer knows the difference.

  • Brian Abel Ragen

    Most colleges with status anxiety have already adopted the name “university.” It is now a sign of a secure identity or a high-level of prestige when colleges keep that name. So Amherst, Williams, Pomona, and Kenyon remain colleges while—just to pick a few examples from my home in St. Louis—Fontbonne, Maryville, Webster, and Lindenwood become univiersities. Except at the elite level, four-year colleges that call themselves that will soon be as hard find as “junior colleges.”

    We should hardly be surprised by this inflation. Think of how the title “professor” is used in America vs. how it is used in Europe (though they are adopting our practice) or the explosion of doctoral programs that do not require “an original contribution to knowledge.” (The best example of that is, of course law. The law schools that used to grant bachelor’s degrees–Ll.B’s–now grant doctorates–J.D.’s–and the doctors of law who want further training go back to get master’s degrees–Ll.M.’s) This is not a vice peculiar to academia. Look at photos of the generals who won World War II and of those who managed the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan: the contrast in the amount of fruit salad on their chests is almost laughable. As is the proliferation of universities and doctorates. (I will not go on to rail about ever-more elaborate academic gowns–though, trust me, I could.)

  • blog21

    I’m having trouble deciphering the article and the headline. Are you saying that in one course, in 3 of the 4 semesters, the savings was only $1, and that DIDN’T include the sell-back option of printed text (so, it was actually a loss to use digital)?

    And, in another course, digital saved $40, but again, not including the sell-back of printed texts?

  • pflady

    I use a text that is available in either print or electronic versions.  Although one might think the electronic texts might have the advantage of lower cost, I think the main advantage is that they take up less space and aren’t heavy!

  • renellin

    I’m sorry but I feel you are just being naive. I am passionate about learning and I continue to take classes long after my educational goals were satisfied. However, I don’t see why because I am engaged in a subject that I should be less rigorous in seeing that my time and resources are not wasted. Changing out editions every other year or so to keep the dates current in the homework problems is a silly way to waste my money. There are a hundred ways that money can be wasted by lack of vigilence, miscalculations, sometimes just a missed communication or misunderstanding can wind up being very expensive. By simply dismissing anyone who is concerned about preserving their resources as whiners you do a disservice to the whole conversation.

  • renellin

    I think you overstate your case. The fact is, SOME college teachers don’t care. In my experience, it is often those ones who have been teaching the same classes for decades, they’ve ‘heard it all’ (ears ringing jbowden?) they make the best money, have their fingers in a lot of politics (probably college ones) maybe run a sport of organization, and most importantly, collect their paychecks and plan their vacations. That is not the vast majority of the experience I have had. Teachers do care, and the fact that there is a lot of experimenting going on shows there is a lot of interest in improving the situation. Most teachers I know are tireless advocates for learning and expansion of opportunity, especially in their chosen field.

  • http://twitter.com/lynndro Lynn Czarnecki

    Very interesting article. I never would have anticipated the cost savings to be so low. Although tech support debates will probably be sorted out and improved over time, if the cost cannot be justified, who knows! Thanks for the article.

  • renellin

    Kind of like we thought online classes would be cheaper than brick-and-mortar?

  • salchaktoka

    Fools and chumps.  The purpose of e-textbooks is not to save customers money; it’s to save publishers money.  Anyone believing or hoping otherwise is a fool and a chump.

  • renellin

    Remember the term ‘reading’ and apply it to the textbook. I can’t say I am going to drag my organic chemistry book around with me, but lit? Are you kidding? I need something I can have with me for every chance I get. I recently bought a printed book in hard cover, also bought the ebook, and have it available on computer and on my phone. While I like to have the physical book to read while at lunch, I can now be the soul of patience in the dr’s office and in the car waiting for someone at the store.
    Opening the book in class is helpful because I like to follow the teacher’s thread as they lecture, and I get a reference for when I am studying or doing homework later. I also make copious notes in margins, so if the technology will let me do that, I also need to be able to access that specifically later. There is a lot to consider–it’s not open and shut (groan!).

  • renellin

    Whose purpose are you talking about? Certainly more than just publishers have an interest in e-books and other methods of information delivery. Publishers would do well to pay attention. If they would protect their income stream, they will need to change with the times, like everyone else. Sorry your outlook seems so hopeless and sarcastic. Try opening the curtains?

  • alf11

    Near the end of the story it says that students will be willing to shift if they can get all class materials for $35 or less. To me, that’s a huge part of the issue.  Yes, there are the nightmare stories of $200 custom-made French textbooks with no resale, but many students imagine that all intellectual content has a price of zero and somehow was created for free.  They seem to resent paying anything for course materials.  I was in college in the mid-1980s, when I earned minimum wage (about $3.50 an hour) and where my college set a standard of no more than $100 per course per semester for course materials.  So….if that was a reasonable cost (we thought it was), and minimum wage has now doubled, then a doubling of that maximum course material price means I could assign books totalling $200 per semester in my classes.  I still stick to the $100 price limit myself (full paperback price as the basis for calculation) even though I get a little irritated by the smart phone wielding students who “can’t afford” my books.

  • 3rdtyrant

    Such a monstrosity might have helped avoid the orthographic faux pas, “shear,” rather than “sheer.” :)

  • jonny53

    Two things concern me. Is it copyright infringement when the text is not reprinted word for word? Is government regulation needed too protect e-books?

  • OccupyPosters

    Ha ha ha ha ha! And anyone actually thought that Big Publishing would *pass along* any savings??? They have profits to make for their shareholders and giant bouuses they gotta pay out, ya know. I tried to tell the often much less than brilliant ones upstairs at college: Not *e-books but OpenBooks* – opensource texts, no tech-locks.

  • glomzx

    “Making matters worse, the students renting e-textbooks could not sell the materials back to the campus bookstore when the semester ended.”  Bummer.  I tried selling the rental house I was living in, but the greedy owner objected.  Doh!

  • h_rowe

    I love a free book! I also support the access to information.  Sounds like school tech/IT departments need to consider the draw on the wifi and students may need to weigh the cost-benefit options.  Having experienced tight budgets, I know the appeal of getting (most of) your money back on study materials.  However, I invite people to consider whether cheaper is truly better, or working that side job and going out a little less to afford a quality/higer-priced product might yield greater, long-term satisfaction — in products and our efforts to get there.  As far as responsibility of technical instruction, it needs to be a shared responsibility, each participant taking a part.  As students, we need to be aware of the features and limitations of both our devices and the products we consume.  Professors, please make clear your expectations and know the limitations of your students and resources in meeting those expectations.  IT staff, thank you for speaking in laymans terms and making clear to your whole campus both network limitations, and what you can do and when for issues as they arrise. Publisher representatives, please better know your market and clearly state what you can do and when for issues as they arise… and consider working on refunds/discounts for a product expiry date or “full price” for continued/indefinate use of products.  Anything is possible.  Access to information will become easier.

  • http://twitter.com/Victoria_KSU teacher victoria

    Interesting point.

  • auntieintellectual

    The Primary concern of most large-scale educational institutions is not even education anymore but the survival of the institution and keeping the top tier faculty and administration well paid. Students? Education? Development of the Individual as a Human Being? FORGET IT. Not happening here. The appearance of education to the extent that students and their parents’ wallets attend is all that is required. That they work hand in hand with other large institutions- publishers, private industry of whatever sector, to keep the money flowing is also of little surprise. That Faculty are a party to this charade and look in the mirror every morning and have the gall to call themselves “educators” of any kind is perhaps the most pathetic part of it all. You are little more than a Pimp for Plato and as much a part of the problem as anyone else. Burn the “6th Edition with Margin Changes on Pg. 278!!!” and tell Houghton Mifflin to, in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., take a flying f*ck at a rolling donut.  

  • Gwen Maloney

    In some cases, the etextbook does have
    a similar cost to that of an etextbook. This is usually down to the publisher
    and how much effort they have put into editing the text, and also depends on
    the contract they have with the author(s). But with new technologies, etextbook
    providers are able to offer chapter by chapter renting. Meaning, that if you
    know you need chapter 1 of a book in week 2, and then chapter 3 a few weeks
    later, there is no need to rent the entire book. You just rent the chapter for
    around a fiver or less, which imo, couldn’t be cheaper.
    I’ve used Kno’s etextbook platform, and I started getting headaches, Chegg was
    okay, but they didnt have one book that I needed, which I found later on lesser
    known Blikbook (http://www.blikbook.com), which I also like for their student
    question and answer forum. I asked a question, and had an answer from an
    academic within a few hours.

  • Gwen Maloney

    In some cases, the etextbook does have
    a similar cost to that of an etextbook. This is usually down to the publisher
    and how much effort they have put into editing the text, and also depends on
    the contract they have with the author(s). But with new technologies, etextbook
    providers are able to offer chapter by chapter renting. Meaning, that if you
    know you need chapter 1 of a book in week 2, and then chapter 3 a few weeks
    later, there is no need to rent the entire book. You just rent the chapter for
    around a fiver or less, which imo, couldn’t be cheaper.
    I’ve used Kno’s etextbook platform, and I started getting headaches, Chegg was
    okay, but they didnt have one book that I needed, which I found later on lesser
    known Blikbook (http://www.blikbook.com), which I also like for their student
    question and answer forum. I asked a question, and had an answer from an
    academic within a few hours.

     

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