My "Save Chatham" Petition

I recently learned that my undergraduate college, Chatham University, celebrating 145 years as a woman’s college, is moving to go co-ed. I am as shocked as all my fellow alumnae and current students and I understand their outrage. I’m right there with them. My experience was unique and I would want to preserve that for future generations as much as anyone.

But outrage and petitions are not enough to “save Chatham.” I see these petitions—the posts on everyone’s Facebook, the Facebook groups and pages, even the website savechatham.com—and all I can think in reply is anger. I get it. Tradition, honor, women’s rights, feminism, whatever. I don’t like the idea either. The problem I have is with the complaining.

All of these women are fighting against this action with no counter proposal. Do they even understand the desperation that Chatham must be in that it would stoop to such a solution? The economy is hurting, and Chatham is no different from any small business. In my four years at Chatham, I noticed the classes getting smaller each year. I noticed the students in my own year that transferred away. Tuition prices were getting hundreds of dollars more expensive every semester. They gave undergraduate housing to the graduates because, hey, they’re getting more of those guys (and I mean, literally, men who are allowed in the graduate program and lived in the undergraduate women’s dorm).

Allowing men into the undergraduate institution could potentially “save Chatham” by giving Chatham more enrollers. Even if you point out that similar colleges like Carlow who were all women and went co-ed don’t have a large men population, if you want to compare Chatham to other colleges why don’t you also compare it to the other private colleges that closed due to bankruptcy?

For alumnae this problem doesn’t really matter. But what about current and future enrolling students? Tuition is already skyrocketing just to fill the gaps of enrollment. To compensate not allowing men into the undergraduate program to increase class size, Chatham will have to put more money into advertising for more young women. They will have to spend more money on programs to appeal to them. That money will be coming out of the students’ pockets more and more. And what do you think will happen when going to a private college will cost more than $200,000 for a degree in a time where getting a job is more about having the experience over having education, even if it’s an entry level position? Enrollment will go down. People will transfer. Tuition goes up to compensate. Enrollment goes down again. Do you see where this is going? And don’t forget about the faculty. They’re the ones that will get fired to save money. Fewer professors mean fewer classes and fewer programs of study, which leads to less enrollment once again. Or the campus will suffer. Maintenance will go down. Sports teams cut. Extra events and activities cut. Residence halls consolidated. Chatham will be a shell of what it once was. What’s the point of all these petitions if it’s going to lead to the college closing down anyway?

If you really want to “Save Chatham” you need to do more than share your opinion and your experience at Chatham University for your other fellow alumnae and students to read and gush about together. Your words will mean nothing if Chatham will have to close its undergrad program entirely. If you really care, you need to use your precious Chatham education to get a great job (good luck with that) so that you can donate to the school and become a trustee. Or find new and willing trustees. Or help out with advertising so that Chatham will get the biggest enrollment of women it’s seen in a decade. Volunteer for something to help alleviate costs. Or propose something entirely new. Don’t just sit there and complain.

As for my personal opinion on the matter, I don’t see why allowing men into the undergraduate program is such a big deal. I chose Chatham because it looked like a nice school with a great environment and highly rated creative writing and English programs. My parents were more comfortable with me going to an all-women’s college because they were living on a military base in South Korea at the time, but I didn’t really care if it was co-ed or women-only.

Honestly, Chatham has such a feminist, forward-thinking environment, wouldn’t it be good to introduce more men into it so that they can share and spread our ideology and cause? Maybe Chatham will have a better reputation than being a bunch of lesbian feminists who want to stay huddled together in the corner of Pittsburgh hating any and all men. Maybe you don’t know that reputation? Being on a sports team, we travelled a lot to other colleges, we’ve overheard the rumors. We are a lesbo-school. Which isn’t actually untrue if you look at what they had to go on. I mean, for my time on the team half of us were lesbians and all of us were LGBT supportive. It was their attitude that pissed us off. But how can they think of us any differently?

Chatham is a bubble. No one can really wander our campus. The only things they really know about our school are probably from the people who transferred out, and what nice things would those people have to say? We aren’t like U. Pitt. where anyone can come and go as they please. I’ve seen women who get antsy when they see groups of men on the campus and will intentionally go the other direction. Or I’ve seen women who would pounce on them like a hungry pack of wolves. I myself felt socially awkward because I wasn’t used to being around guys. When I took graduate classes in my senior year, we had a man in it, and I think it was much more enlightening than having a class full of women. He applied a different perspective that really helped everyone, as I’m sure our perspective helped him.

I don’t wish to get into the politics about anything. This rant isn’t about feminists or being a feminist or believing in feminism, however you define it. I would like to preserve Chatham as much as the next woman, but only for its tradition. From a real world standpoint, I think having a segregated college is archaic. Segregation and isolation are historically unfavorable for the segregated/isolated side, so why continue with it? What are the benefits in it that are more beneficial than sharing our ideology and way of life to the other side? Like I said before, I don’t want to get into politics, so I’ll finish that thought there.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully support Chatham staying as a women’s college, but I just want to point out that if Chatham needs to go co-ed in order to be functional, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. In fact, it could be a new opportunity. The point of my argument was to point out the flaws in the arguments of my friends and to provide my own opinion on the matter of Chatham turning co-ed, and I think I effectively went off on a few tangents there, so I will stop here.

This long rant brought to you by Jennifer Murphy, Class of 2013.