Nov. 2, 2006

Affirmative Action for White C+ Guys

Many colleges these days are shifting their admissions strategies away from the SAT, arguing that high school grades are the best way to predict college success and that a reliance on standardized testing can limit the diversity of applicants.

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Maryland’s Towson University is taking a step in the opposite direction. Last year it started a program — which is growing this year — to admit some students whose SAT scores are better than the university’s average, but whose high school grades are significantly worse. The vast majority of beneficiaries of this program are white males — and the program is popular at Towson in part because the university is experiencing a significant gender gap. Sixty percent of Towson students are women, and because a few Towson programs have relative parity in enrollments, others are more lopsidedly female.

Towson’s program comes at a time that many colleges, fearful of growing gender gaps, are considering affirmative action for men. In March, an opinion piece in The New York Times by an admissions dean at Kenyon College set off a national debate in admissions circles by acknowledging that many liberal arts colleges accept male applicants with lower grades and test scores than those of comparable female applicants. An article in The Baltimore Sun recently explored how Towson’s program differs from policies used elsewhere and why Towson’s program is unlikely to face legal challenges. The key answer is that Towson’s program is open to men and women, even if the cohort of people who do well on SAT’s but don’t earn good grades is dominated by men.

But legal issues aside, there’s the question of why one would favor students who are capable but don’t earn good grades.

“There are students who got off course in high school,” and this is a way to help them, said Deborah J. Leather, associate provost at Towson. She acknowledged that numerous studies have found that the best way to predict college performance is through grades in rigorous college preparatory courses. But Leather said Towson officials thought it was important to look at how students with high SAT scores and lower grades would succeed in college, if given the chance.

The target population for the Academic Special Admit Program consists of those with SAT scores of at least 1200 and grade-point averages in high school of 2.6 to 3.2. By comparison, the average SAT score for Towson students is 1086 and the average GPA is 3.4.

Last year, Towson enrolled 49 students in the program, 40 of whom finished the year. This year, the number is up to 72. Who are the students?

Fifty-six of this year’s admits are men. And of the 65 students who identified their race and ethnicity, 56 are white. Leather said that she assumed the program would end up helping students at public high schools, but that a number of private high school students have been admitted this way.

Leather said it was important to evaluate the program in the context that it makes up a small part of Towson’s student body — 1,200 students are in a typical freshman class, and while the new program may increase a bit, the idea is not to take slots away from those who get in with good grades.

Students in the program are provisionally admitted and must do a number of things to stay eligible: Maintain a 2.0 grade point average, attend study halls twice a week, pass a quiz on using the library, and meet with their advisers. “They are getting a lot of TLC,” Leather said. “We do a lot of intervention.”

With all that extra help, the students’ retention rate is slightly below Towson’s general rate for freshmen returning for a second year — which is around 85 percent.

With all the concerns these days about encouraging students in high school to take more rigorous courses, and limited resources to help students who come to college prepared, why would a public university that boasts of its increasing academic quality start a new program for those who are smart enough to do well on the SAT but may not have buckled down in high school? Leather said that some of them may have had personal problems. And she said others may just be figuring out what they want to do in life, or may be more serious now than they were earlier. She acknowledged that adding male students was also a goal, but said that was only part of the larger picture.

She said she didn’t think this sent a bad message to high school students. “I would never want the message to be that this is how you are going to do it,” she said, noting that most students who earn poor grades in high school don’t then go on to do well on the SAT.

The program has caused no controversy at Towson. Timothy Sullivan, an associate professor of economics who is chair of the University Senate, said that professors were consulted as the effort was developed and that they supported it. As a public university serving the Baltimore area, Sullivan said, Towson should be serving all kinds of students, and if male students aren’t enrolling, it makes sense for the university to try alternative approaches.

Brian Stelter, a senior who is editor in chief of The Towerlight, the student newspaper, said that he earned a 3.4 GPA in high school and so wouldn’t have needed the new program, but he also said he wasn’t bothered by it. He said that the gender gap is a big issue for students on the campus, so he’s in favor of efforts to do something about it. “If you ask girls on this campus what they think, their top question is: Where are the men?” he said.

Charles Miller, who led the recent review of higher education commissioned by Education Secretary Margaret M. Spellings, has been critical of colleges for not insisting on higher standards in high schools. But he noted that many high schools aren’t great, so he said students who do poorly shouldn’t be presumed to be at fault. “I don’t want to lose these kids, so I like this effort,” he said, adding that he was especially impressed with the coaching the students receive once enrolled.

Others said that the Towson program raised issues that need careful consideration.

Kati Haycock is director of the Education Trust, a group that promotes high academic standards and more coordination among all levels of higher education. She said that she supported “any sort of innovation in this area,” so she was happy to learn about the Towson program and the plans to study it. “Things like this idea, in a limited and basic way, can be helpful to understanding what really matters and what doesn’t,” she said. As long as Towson evaluated the project with care — which officials in fact pledge to do — it could be a valuable experiment, she said.

However, she noted the danger in this approach.

“If they were seen as saying ‘we don’t care about high school grades any more and the basic message is ‘you don’t have to crack a book,’ then that wouldn’t be a good thing,” Haycock said. “They need to have some very serious conversations with school systems.”

“Kids are acutely sensitive to the signals higher ed sends,” she said. “You wouldn’t want the word on the street to be: Don’t bother studying as long as you are smart enough on the SAT.”

Some said Towson was sending precisely that message.

“This is a classic case of test score misuse,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. “Towson University is relying on the well-known gender bias of the SAT, which underpredicts college performance for females and overpredicts for males, to recruit young men who have failed to compile strong high school records. Towson’s message to teenagers is wrong-headed: It’s OK to slack off in the classroom, so long as you do well on a four-hour test.”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

GPA?

Very...weird. I know that they ought to be admitting more people who actually...worked? to get into college, not skimmed by on a C+ average. I don’t even know how people get a C+ average, and moreover, the college said nothing about taking into account the level of classes these people were taking: if someone has a C+ average on honors and AP courses it’s a completely different thing than a C+ student who is taking the minumum and nothing else. Regardless of the gender gap I think that this is an odd practice to be instituting, because in reality what will these C+ students achieve? They should have worked harder in high school, and as they didn’t they should be punished. If you aren’t good enough for a college, then don’t go. The admissions staff should be intelligent enough to recognise that.

EmmaE, at 5:35 pm EDT on July 14, 2008

We have a culture that diminishes maleness to the maximum extent possible. I went to college in the mid 80’s. At that point in history it was more than disturbing what was happening with gender politics on college campuses. Now that I’m a parent, I can say that this pales in comparison to the anti-male rhetoric my children have been fed in primary and secondary school. Combine this with a media that is so fearful of patriarchy that it can’t present a respectable father or husband and a news media that doesn’t even see a problem with two women earning degrees from California’s state schools for every man and you have a formula for disaster.

There are many places in the world where this hasn’t occurred.

I’m disgusted with America’s system of education.

As a former Harvard faculty member, I saw how little respect there is for truth, even at the world’s most prestigious academic institution. I listened to faculty members brag that they’d lie in their research if they had to. I listened to their death threats when I objected to this. I saw them take down Larry Summers.

With intellectually corrupt feminist enclaves like Harvard’s Graduate School of Education driving education policy, it’s no wonder that our system of primary and secondary education has acheived third world status... or that it promotes failure for those afflicted with the disease of maleness.

RS, at 5:00 am EDT on July 22, 2008

Irony

The irony surrounding the growing non-use of SAT’s and to some extent the ACT is that the use of these tests started as a way to combat discrimination. They were thought to be an objective way to measure the ability to do college work while limiting biases against race, socio-economic status, gender, as well as legacy students.

High school GPA can be a reliabe way of determining student ability but not all GPA’s are equal. Some students take a more rigorous curriculum in high school than others and some high schools are just more demaning than others. I beleive it is necessary for admission professionals to look at both high school gpa and SAT scores.

Finally, colleges must stop searching for cosmic justice in the enrollment percentages of their student bodies. Because decisions on where to attend college are made by individuals and not by groups there will always be the great probablity that a college’s enrollment will not match regional or national population percentages in terms of race, gender, socio-economic status or any other category that might be used.

Thomassowellfan, at 8:10 am EST on November 2, 2006

male students

I am not sure of the professional research, so if someone out there is, please respond, but I believe one issue avoided in this article is that males often are slower to hit their stride in high school and are finally ready to settle down and focus after reaching college age. It’s not that they are not “capable", it’s just not a priority during high school to get good grades. Developmentally, males mature later both physically and mentally than females and it sounds like admissions need to adress this simple fact.

Jody, adjunct; social science at community college, at 8:50 am EST on November 2, 2006

“Finally, colleges must stop searching for cosmic justice in the enrollment percentages of their student bodies. Because decisions on where to attend college are made by individuals and not by groups there will always be the great probablity that a college’s enrollment will not match regional or national population percentages in terms of race, gender, socio-economic status or any other category that might be used.”

I get your point. But, I think many universities attempt (and should attempt) to create an academic environment that maximizes the learning experience. If their selection criteria happens to yield majority women and they want and value a diverse academic environment, they need to examine ways to include more men. Academic experiences and learning include more than what the professor teaches; it is also about what you learn from interaction with peers in the college setting. This is why diversity of all kinds is important because different groups bring different things to the table to share and for all to learn. It seems that the future leaders of this country should have a broad perspective of life in America and should learn from the men, women, whites, blacks, latinos, etc. what it is like to be who they are in the country. Students can only learn that through interaction with a variety of people in university and other settings.

andy, at 8:50 am EST on November 2, 2006

IRONY

I agree with Thomassowellfan in the first two paragraphs, though I think it is too easy to say simply that individuals make decisions. Individuals belong to groups, which are tied together by their common characteristics. For instance, a higher socioeconomic group is more likely to contain students with college-educated parents than a lower socioeconomic group. This group characteristic has a direct influence on the decision-making of individuals in the group. Individuals don’t make decisions in a vacuum. Rather, group membership has an influence on the decisions that individuals make.

MJB, at 8:50 am EST on November 2, 2006

Strong Opinion

I have to disagree with much of what has been discussed to this point here. First of all, the original SAT was meant as a discriminatory tool for schools in the East who wanted to keep out a certain growing population. Hence the original problem with social bias seen in many of the early SAT tests.Now, having been one of those high SAT and low grade white males who was given a chance, however long ago that might have been, I have to advocate the balanced use of SAT and grades in determining admission to colleges. By the way, I have been in college admissions for over 22 years. The balance I speak of has to do with potential ability, which is all the SAT projects and to some degree all that high school grades predict. Often time colleges and universities keep students OUT of college because they did not perform well on a four hour test, while having performed very well in the four years of high school. I used to preach that performance in high school is a better predictor than performance on the SAT or ACT, not always the case. In fact, at my University students who scored below 800 on the SAT have consistently maintained satisfactory academic progress at or above the level of those scoring above 900 on the SAT. I propose a study be done at several universities around the country to compare using the SAT as a predictor and doing away with the SAT and using only grades as a predictor of success and see which works, then we have a baseline to compare and make informed decisions.

Martin, at 9:36 am EST on November 2, 2006

Expensive SAT Programs?

I was raised in a community in the North East of the US near a large “A” city where the majority of families were white, middle class and professional. Many of the students fell into the mean at my high school with regards to GPA. The expectation amongst many of these students was that beginning in their sophmore year, they would begin to participate in expensive SAT training classes and would receive additional tutoring (often beginning in their junior year) that was organized around how to beat the test. This expectation was supported in practice and many of the students at the school began training to take the SATs beginning either during or before their sophmore year.

The SATs are a surmountable obstacle for upper middle income families, however you want to describe that SES in relation to the per capita income of a particular region.

Rob, at 10:10 am EST on November 2, 2006

“But legal issues aside, there’s the question of why one would favor students who are capable but don’t earn good grades.”

Well, it could be because many of our high schools are really terrible. The kids have the brains but are not taught well. In a better environment they will do better, that could be the rationale.

Ken, at 11:20 am EST on November 2, 2006

“Well, it could be because many of our high schools are really terrible. The kids have the brains but are not taught well. In a better environment they will do better, that could be the rationale.”

I agree with Ken. The high school experience for many guys has very little to do with grades. They only come after matters involving popularity, bullying, dating, belonging, rebelling, driving, and sports — or maybe “popularity” really covers it all.

In how many schools do guys tone down the grades and be sure they don’t look intelligent so they can fit in? What guy in high school is envied because he has good grades? What guy has ever been more popular because he studies more, does more homework, reads more of the textbook or writes a better essay? I think Jody has it right, too: it takes more independence and maturity than most high school guys can muster to value academics above sports, a cool MySpace page and a hot car.

Dale, prof at Jamestown Community College, at 12:05 pm EST on November 2, 2006

Developmentally, males mature later both physically and mentally than females and it sounds like admissions need to adress this simple fact.

A comment like that would you get you ousted at Harvard :)

K.T., at 1:30 pm EST on November 2, 2006

Public v Private

I am pleased to see this in a priavte university. I earned my BA from a state-funded school, and I had a neighbor in the dorms one year who was in the school’s program for students with lower GPAs. Like the Towson students, she had to hit benchmarks during a year of probation. She demonstrated an admirable focus on her studies, justifying the trust the admissions office placed in her.

Andrew Purvis, at 1:30 pm EST on November 2, 2006

Dale, I don’t know where you went to school, but there seem to be plenty of men with good grades in high school, and plenty of men that didn’t take sports, popularity and other stuff too seriously.

I don’t see how high school discriminates against men. If schools are really that bad, then they would impact women and men equally. If there are men who don’t study hard, there are women that don’t as well. Indeed, my guess is that for every bookish wallflower, there is a bubbily bimbo.

Larry, at 1:30 pm EST on November 2, 2006

finally

This is a great idea, but I’m not sure why it has to be phrased in gender terms. I’ve always been opposed to the push to make the SAT optional or get rid of it entirely. What it does is overvalue the ability to excel in an often stifling and conformity-driven system like high school, and undervalue raw intelligence, which does show up on an SAT, as flawed as that test is. Maybe it does disproportionately affect boys, who are conditioned to see doing well in school as uncool.

Then all of a sudden, we have a “boy crisis,” which must be addressed by affirmative action for boys. Girls who are just as smart and nonconformist are ignored. Towson’s policy is a positive step toward recognizing ALL students who may not fit into the boxes prescribed for them by the American high school system. (Not surprisingly, it seems to be a lot more controversial than other schools out-and-out preferences for male applicants.)

jcl, grad student, at 1:45 pm EST on November 2, 2006

This is a non-problem. Who cares who gets into Towson State? Only Towson State does, and that’s because they need to pay their bills. If a white guy with a C+ average doesn’t get admitted there, he’ll get admitted somewhere else. Indeed, virtually anyone who wants to go to college today will get admitted somewhere, and if he’s determined, he’ll probably be able to pass enough courses in some subject—e.g., “Cultural Studies"—to graduate. And thus the taxpayers will have subsidized an “achievement” of almost no value to them. That’s our problem—too many students in too many colleges, in a nation that has too much faith in higher education. We need more people with valued skills and fewer people with pointless diplomas. The model we might emulate is Scandinavia, where there is sufficient opportunity, higher efficiency, and impressive prosperity. Only about 1/3 of young people are channeled to go on to university there, and the public pays all the bills. It’s “socialized education,” to be sure, with fewer choices and second chances, but they get more bang for their buck, and more productivity. And possibly more satisfaction across the board. There are no Towson States full of C+ white guys in Denmark, because they don’t need them, and don’t want them.

Michael, at 2:15 pm EST on November 2, 2006

Outrage?

This conversation is really interesting. There are multiple people who are rationalizing why white guys with average grades (and supposedly high SATs) are being admitted to Towson, due to *Affirmative Action*. I wonder what the response to this story would have been if “white” would have been replaced with minority. Just two weeks ago there was uproar over the U of M case and affirmative action. Yet, we have people, here, probably mostly white, saying “oh (white) males mature later,” and “these (white) males attended horrible schools...” Come on, what hypocrisy—where is the anger about AA being unfair or unconstitutional? Where are the warped arguments like “my daughter was more qualified and did not get in because she was a girl"? Where are the, “there are other (Asian) males who obtain good grades AND great SATs and they lost out to unqualified white guys?” I ask, where is the outrage? Or do we need discussions about the “unintelligent,” and “unqualified” minorities (read blacks and hispanics) to get our juices flowing? This is almost laughable.

Matthew, Where is the outrage?, at 2:46 pm EST on November 2, 2006

To Michael:

And who gets to decide what programs of study are valuable? You? A distinguished panel appointed by whichever person lies well enough to sit in the White House after any given election?

Isn’t this why employers have applications and interviews? The value of the degree is not for society to determine, it is for the degree holder to decide. If someone can’t get a job with the degree he or she earned, then maybe the degree has little value for that individual.

We could start by banning MBA programs, reducing the need for lawyers and, by extension, law schools. If we ban medical schools, social work will be largely unaffected as fewer people will be well cared for, but more will die off sooner. Right there we have gotten rid of the largest groups entering politics, so perhaps, after a redefinition, political science can be simplified and cut back. Information will become less important, reducing the need for MLS programs, or publicly accessible libraries for that matter. The options are endless.

Yes, I am having my fun here (disclaimer required for those who are differently amused or irony-challenged, of which I have seen no shortage commenting here), but I am serious about my primary point: Making arbitrary decisions—and make no mistake, they would be arbitrary—about which degrees qualify as good enough to keep under such a proposal is an inherently political matter. Check this article from Wired for an example of just what I mean. Are you prepared to place decisions about what qualifies as a worthwhile academic endeavor in the hands of politicians? I am not.

Andrew Purvis, at 4:01 pm EST on November 2, 2006

Laughable? Indeed!

There might be outrage if this were actually affirmative action. The article is far more than its (ill-advised) headline, and it would be good to keep that in mind.

Towson is not targeting a group based on any socio-economic demographic, even if it is doing this “in part [to address] a significant gender gap.” When one argues that a person of a specific race or gender should be granted admission based upon more lenient standards than everyone else, that is one thing, but Towson is not doing that. Indeed, what Towson is doing is replacing part of one measuring stick for part of another. Colleges have been doing this for years.

How many admission experts are commenting here? I would love to be corrected if I am wrong, but my understanding is that admission is based on a mixture of factors, and that a 4.0 student is not walking into Harvard or UCLA on a 900 SAT (modern 2400 standard or not). A student with a 4.0 might catch a little break in placement test scores, however, against a student with a 3.6. This takes it a [few] step[s] further, but it is anything but affirmative action in any sense of the term that has existed before.

Andrew Purvis, at 4:01 pm EST on November 2, 2006

second try

Sadly most of this comes down to $$. If you have the $$, you will find a school to take you (no matter what categories you would like to use, ie. male/female; black/white/Asian; high SAT/low SAT).

Someone commented about why do we even care about this issue. I personally like balance in the classroom and by balance I mean a wide range of diversity because in diversity comes “balance.” A class discussion in a diverse grouping (including a combination of female/male students) allows for a greater number of perspectives...therefore, “balance.”

My earlier comment isn’t just for “white” males. I was only focusing on the question of “why” this group (males) may not have as high of scores in high school. Other reasons have to do with parental attitudes and guidance, influence of peers, support of high school teachers and staff, quality of instruction, age of textbooks (one of the most annoying things I saw when my own children were in HS—textbooks anywhere from 15-20 years old being used), reasonable science lab equipment, current library materials and equipment, and so on and so on.

Jody, at 5:55 am EST on November 3, 2006

Let’s Be Truthful Here

If you’re a serial killer who is going to donate $100MM to a university, you can get an honors degree at Harvard, and probably any university of your choice.

It won’t matter if you’re male/female, black/white/hispanic, a relative of Bin Laden (harvardites all), or second cousin to Adolf Hitler.

Jon S, Let’s Be Truthful Here, at 9:35 am EST on November 3, 2006

To Andrew

Do I get to decide what programs or degrees are valuable? You bet I do, because I’m faculty. And if we decide, for any reason, not to offer a degree in Classics or Hospitality Management, it doesn’t get offered. What do you think a university is? A kind of academic Wal-Mart where students come in and order whatever they want? Maybe it’s coming to that, but it’s not that yet.

Michael, at 2:10 pm EST on November 3, 2006

Decision Process

No one faculty member or school gets to decide that a specific field of study has no value. No individual or single school gets to invalidate an entire degree at all schools. After all, if Michael and I disagree, even teaching on different campuses, we would, given my initial question, cancel one another out.

No one here—certainly not I—has suggested that the students should have the power to grab any degree they want, forming it if it doesn’t exist.

Andrew Purvis, at 8:20 pm EST on November 5, 2006

High SAT, Low GPA

I am surprised that no one has raised the issue of ADHD. Not that this applies in all the cases, but a typical ADHD high school profile for a bright student is high SAT, low GPA. Not because the student is lazy, but because he probably has poor organizational and time management skills. He may have forgotten to hand in an assignment, or she was daydreaming when the teacher went over important material. Some of these students do well on their tests, but do not perform well in other areas. There are any number of reasons, but I find it interesting that Towson, which does not have strong disability support services, is in effect, giving these students a chance to succeed. I am glad to see this. There are many other colleges that have a separate admissions policy for these students, and generally have a 2 year developmental program to help these students learn study skills. They are very successful. Yes, many of these, boys or girls, are late bloomers, and many of them have learning disabilities or ADHD. Many above-average ADHD students who have not performed well in high school, thrive in college. They can move around a lot more, they can have down time between classes, and they can study subjects that interest them.

I don’t think it is so wrong for Towson to reach out to these students, and I would hope that they might even expand their disability support to meet the needs of more students like these.

JB, at 1:15 pm EST on November 6, 2006

GPA was a poor predictor for me

My high school GPA was an unremarkable 3.5, not even close to the valedictorian or salutatorian. However, my standardized test scores were equal to the highest in my class.

My college GPA was almost a perfect 4.0. I graduated summa cum laude. I also participated in the honors program, wrote a senior honors thesis, and did not avoid challenging courses.

I was certainly not a slacker in high school. In fact, I felt like I had to work harder in high school than in college. (Or perhaps, I just enjoyed working hard in college more.)

I suspect that my relatively poorer performance in high school was due to the way it taught the material. My high school (like most high schools) stressed rote learning and busy work. In contrast, my university (like most universities) stressed understanding the concepts and being able to apply them.

I am one person for which the standardized test scores meant more than the GPA.

MnZ, at 1:20 pm EST on November 12, 2006

In my case I did not do that well in grade school and highschool. Some students do not fit in well to the cookie cutter education system we have in the USA. There is a tendency to just ignore students that are passing, but may just barely be getting by. With the help of a tutor in my Grade School years, my mother was able to get me through High School. It was a real struggle. So I went into the military, and then later worked at a factory. Sooner or later I got layed off and then I eventually went back to school at a community college, when I graduated with Honors with a degree in Management Information Systems.

I did not do that well in High School, and I did not really do that well on a lot of standardized tests. I was part of the silent majority who do not do well in English, but do fairly well in math. It was easier to go to college, because we just did not have much homework, and I did pretty well on the tests. When I went back to school, I had been layed off and it was a kind of sink or swim point in my life, so I had a reason to succeed and a desire to learn a new trade.

I went back to school on funding from JTPA after working in a grant work program for flood clean-up. There was money available to go to school, so I signed up. To me any job where you did not have to break your back working like a slave seemed like a good idea to me. I never was mechanically inclined, so working with my brain to solve problems seemed like a lot better idea. I was this peg that had found the right shape of a hole to fit into.

Tests and grades can be very misleading for some people. The human spirit sometimes finds a way to succeed when all else fails. This is why I am for giving people a chance. It was not my fault the factory I worked at mismanaged their business and layed people off. However, in the end, it was to my eventual benefit.

Charles, Programmer at Lewis & Clark Community College, at 11:26 am EST on December 5, 2006

Why not, since grades are arbitrary anyway?

This sounds like a great program to me. Most likely because I would have fit into it very well. I scored extremely high on the SAT. (I literally laughed at how easy the test was.) But my grades were less than stellar. This was mostly because I simply quite trying about halfway through my sophomore year. I started realizing that the difference between a B and a B+ was how much work I put into the course, but that the difference between a B+ and an A had nothing to do with effort and everything to do with how much ass I kissed. And over-all GPA was even more of a joke. Here I am struggling to stay above the 3.0 mark, taking 2 and 3 AP courses at a time while Spicoli takes ceramics, photography and “Business English” (whatever the hell that means) gets a 3.8 and is ranked above me in class standing.

Luckily for me, I knew that I could take the difficult classes that would prepare me for college without having to worry about actually getting in to college because of my resulting low grades. Why? Because all I had to do was go in and knock the SATs out of the park.

Keith, WWU, at 4:40 am EST on December 20, 2006

It is ironic that Towson is a college with a “significant” gender gap (60% female) and the student newspaper editor, who is male, refers to women as “girls” while referring to men as “men". Whole lot of good it is doing the women students of Towson to be in a slight majority when they can’t even get credit for being adults.

Meanwhile Towson was founded as a normal school (teachers college), a field which at the time and today is well more than 60% female. Towson has one of the oldest woman’s studies programs in the country. Also three of twelve of their college presidents were female (but all before 1931). You would think Towson would choose to celebrate and expand their historical and ongoing commitment to women’s education.

And another thing 78% of the student body is white. I would call that a significant majority.

kra, at 7:56 pm EST on January 9, 2007

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Attending Anesthesiologist
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center-Downtown Denver

Posting Description: Attending Anesthesiologist Department of Anesthesiology University of Colorado General ... see job

Nursing Instructor
Butte Glenn Community College District

Butte-Glenn Community College District Full-Time; Grant Funded NURSING INSTRUCTOR Final Filing Date FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2009 ... see job