By Christa Desrets
Graduates of women’s colleges are better prepared than others to take on leadership roles, according to results from a recent survey of alumnae from Sweet Briar College and other women’s colleges.
“The survey is designed to look at alumnae perceptions once they’ve been out of college long enough to have established themselves in careers and have a kind of distanced look at how their college prepared them,” said Sweet Briar President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld.
The survey, “What Matters in College After College,” was conducted by Hardwick Day, a Minnesota-based consultant for private colleges.
The Women’s College Coalition commissioned the study, which included telephone interviews from more than 1,000 alumnae of women’s colleges and other private colleges and public universities who graduated from 1970 to 1997. The company also drew from its database of more than 10,000 interviews.
The study did not include graduates of the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, which became the coeducational Randolph College last year.
Women’s colleges scored similarly to other liberal arts colleges in many areas.
In other areas such as public speaking, thinking analytically and creatively, writing and working in a team, a greater percentage of women’s college graduates ranked their alma maters positively.
“We found these data heartening because those of us who have attended women’s colleges or who teach at women’s colleges have known that these are highly effective institutions, but we did not have good, contemporary data to back that up,” said Muhlenfeld, who is chair of the Women’s College Coalition and led the initiative to commission the survey.
According to the study, alumnae of women’s colleges are more likely to serve in leadership roles and perform community service activities.
“There’s something about the special experience of being at a women’s college that really fosters leadership skills,” Muhlenfeld said.
Kristin Barnes, student body president at Sweet Briar, said she has found getting involved easier there than at Pepperdine University, which she attended for one semester before transferring.
Kristin Chapdelaine, a senior majoring in business, also thought leadership was an attribute given strong emphasis at Sweet Briar.
“We’re not competing with men, so we have more opportunities than we might have at other schools,” she said.
Muhlenfeld said she is in the process of using the survey to compare Sweet Briar graduates to alumnae of other women’s colleges. The results will help school officials decide how to improve the institution, she said.
Susan Lennon, executive director of the Women’s College Coalition, said the results show how skills that alumnae learned in college translate into the workplace and community.
“I think it is terrific food for thought for perspective students and their families to think about what is it that you need to be looking for in a college to find the right fit,” she said. |
