President's Message
As Salem College marks 230 years of excellence in education for women, we pause to reflect on the bold and lasting effects of the Moravians' establishment of a school for girls in the village of Salem in 1772.
When these courageous founders started the school, most young women in the South received little formal education. Although the proliferation of public schools began to address that need in the years that followed, nearly 200 years passed before many colleges and universities accepted women. Now that there are more opportunities for girls and women, you may be pondering the question of whether the single-sex academic experience is still as necessary today as it was 230, or even 25, years ago. Unfortunately, research in the last few years seems to indicate that girls and women are still sometimes shortchanged in the co-educational classroom. You may have read about the studies in the early 1900s that concluded teachers were less likely to call on girls in class. When boys called out answers, teachers listened; when the girls did, they were more likely to tell them to "raise your hand when you want to speak." Incidents such as these send subtle signals to girls that they should be polite and unassuming, that we demand less assertiveness and risk-taking of them than of boys.
The research also showed the daunting effects of such signals: Early in their schooling, girls tend to outperform boys, especially in reading and verbal skills. At puberty, however, girls experience a sharp decline in self-esteem; that drop precedes their decline in academic performance. Fortunately, women's college seems to mitigate some of the unfairness young women may have experienced during their school years. And women's colleges yield extraordinary results. One study showed that, compared to their peers at co-educational schools:
- Women's college graduates are seven times more likely to pursue careers in higher-paying fields such as law, medicine, business management and computer science.
- Although women's college graduates account for only 4 percent of all women with bachelor's degrees, they make up more than one-third of the women board members of Fortune 1000 companies.
- The median salary for women's college graduates exceeds the national average for women with college degrees.
- More than 80 percent pursue graduate studies, and they are more than twice as likely to earn doctorates, particularly in the natural sciences, and to enter medical school.
Elizabeth Bolton '94, a customer analysis research manager at Apple Computer in Cupertino, California, said she can sum up the main advantage of a women's college in one word: confidence. "When I tell people I went to a women's college, often the first thing they ask is, 'Didn't that put you at a disadvantage for working in a male-dominated profession? Didn't that environment just shelter you?' I feel that it did just the opposite! At Salem, I couldn't sit in the back of the room and wait for the guys to raise their hands. I was constantly challenged; I had to participate in projects and proposals. I gained self-confidence from doing those things." In the workforce, she said, "People are always challenging you, especially if you say something they don't want to hear. A women's college gives you the confidence that you are good at what you do, that you can stand up to the challenge."
The year following her graduation, Bolton's self-confidence was also tested in a graduate business program in Belgium. Bolton attended the program, which was predominately male, on a Rotary Scholarship. On one occasion she was assigned to do a group project with six other male students. "I could tell when I said something they weren't really listening," she said. "They would say, 'Isn't that nice,' then a few minutes later, one of them would say the exact same thing, and they would say it was a great idea! I knew from my experience at Salem that I had been part of groups before, and I had contributed, so I insisted on being involved. I wonder if I hadn't had that background, if I would have just shut up and let them do everything."
Just as it has for the past 229 years, Salem remains firmly committed to giving young women the excellent education and confidence it gave Bolton and many of her peers. Clearly, the option of choosing a girls' school or women's college is one that must be preserved.
- Dr. Julianne Still Thrift, President of Salem Academy & College