Announcement Transcript

Jolley Bruce Christman '69
President, Board of Trustees

Good morning. I am Jolley Bruce Christman—Class of 1969 and President of the R-MWC Board of Trustees.

Our College is a college with rigorous academic standards, an emphasis on liberal arts, a committed faculty, and a strong respectful community that takes its moral course from our Honor System. Its commitments are to women’s learning and advancement, and to education in the singular.

This morning, after two and a half years of research and deliberation, the Board of Trustees voted to approve the strategic directions proposed by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. In doing so, the trustees have claimed a future for the College that invites young men to become part of our community and join with us as we advocate for gender equality and the life more abundant for peoples around the world.

This announcement resonates with both loss and hope, tears and anticipation. Pearl Buck, perhaps our most well-known alumna, reflected, “In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book.’ ”

Today, we begin to write the next chapter in our history.

 

Virginia Hill Worden '69
Interim President

The founder of this College, William Waugh Smith, had a passion for ensuring that “young women may obtain an education equal to that given in our best colleges for young men…” In order to realize that vision he went to the trustees of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia and petitioned them to admit women. He was rebuffed.

Thus he changed course. He came to this gracious town and rallied support to build women “a college of our own.”

Today, 115 years later, it is a different world that has told us that it is time for us to change our course. For whatever reasons, insufficient numbers of women recognize the golden opportunity that R-MWC holds out.

Our trustees today are NOT giving up the mission of this College. They are issuing a call to purpose. Where better than at this College with its dynamic and brilliant faculty, its supportive staff, resourceful students, and phenomenal alumnae—where better, indeed, to find a way to educate women—AND men—to develop together the strong leaders and citizens that are so needed in our world.

This small document is not a plan—it is a direction, a vision, an imperative. We are called to give it life. Do not, I implore you, turn your back on this call. Let us roll up our sleeves on Monday morning and begin to embrace our future.

 

William Coulter
Dean of the College

The identity of a college is the result of many things: physical surroundings, scale, values, and companions. R-MWC has been devoted from the first to high academic standards and to powerful community. Those things will continue. For decades, alumnae have come back for reunions chiefly to see their friends and to talk with their former faculty members ­– I do not see that changing. The power of community and the excellence of the academic endeavor will remain at the heart of the institution.

Many of us look forward with eager anticipation to an era when the College will be positioned to carry these high standards and this sense of community to even higher levels. This change is a challenge to all of us – it’s the biggest challenge to those of us who have been here the longest. But we must learn to see the change as a positive one: the College’s ability to contribute to the state, the nation, and the world will be enhanced, not diminished.