The president of Grove College has recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition of all-female education and begin admitting men

The president of Grove College has recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition of all-female education and begin admitting men. Pointing to other all-female colleges that experienced an increase in applications after adopting coeducation, the president argues that coeducation would lead to a significant increase in applications and enrollment. However, the director of the alumnae association opposes the plan. Arguing that all-female education is essential to the very identity of the college, the director cites annual surveys of incoming students in which these students say that the school’s all-female status was the primary reason they selected Grove. The director also points to a survey of Grove alumnae in which a majority of respondents strongly favored keeping the college all female.

The president of Grove College has argued that to increase the number of applicants and enrollment, the college should begin admitting men. Wile the director of the alumnae association opposes the recommendation based on the surveys of students and the alumnae and wanted to keep the identity. There are a number of questions regarding to these two lines of reasoning that required further analysis. The argument could end up being pretty convincing or invalid in the end, depending on the answers to those questions.

To begin with, i am going to put forward revolve around the view of the president. While we are informed other all-female colleges experienced an increase in number of applicants after carrying out coeducation, we still have no information concerning whether the coeducation is the sole reason responsible to the increase. Are there any other possible reason attributing to the rise? If the answer is yes, for example, colleges adopting coeducation may also improved their quality of courses, then the presidents argument would be challenged. Otherwise the conclusion can be strengthened.

In addition, there are also some questions remain unsolved regarding to the argument of the director of Grove alumnae. Although we can assumed that keeping all-female education is essential to very identity, whether a salient identity can bring more applications and enrollments is a question. For instance, if the answer is negative, then the identity factor will be exclude in the  discussion of increasing applications, thus weakened the director’s conclusion. However, the argument can be strengthen if the answer is opposite.

Finally, while two surveys about the coeducation of incoming students and Grove alumnae seperately provided information for the director’s consideration, the question whether these two surveys are efficient needs further analysis. Since the incoming students are all female, the answers from them may not be relevant to the increase of further applications. The attitudes of Grove alumnae cannot represent the consequence of coeducation as well. Consequently, if the efficacy of two surveys can be proved, then the argument of the director will be strenghthened, otherwise it would be undermined.