Where are all the fresh-men in the Class of 2010?

Enrollment trends, uneven dorm assignments emphasize gender disparity

Lauren Sutherland Life Editor

The idea of the co-ed college bathroom is sometimes worrisome to incoming Vassar freshmen, evoking images of overtaxed showers and toilets, as well as humiliating encounters with the opposite sex in varying degrees of undress. However, the comparatively pristine bathroom on the west wing of Josselyn House’s fourth floor is at odds with the conditions typical of many bathrooms on campus, something the freshmen girls who use it attribute to the lack of male residents on their floor.

“The girls seemed a little confused about the seemingly absent male population, and actually asked me if any upperclassmen guys would move into the hall,” said Kate Fussner ’09, who is a student fellow for an all-female group on a floor that houses only six male students.

This year, there has been an apparent dearth of new male arrivals to the College, only a year after the Class of 2009 brought a promising, more balanced male/female student ratio of 42:58. The uneven distribution of male and female freshmen in residence halls emphasizes this gap. Some dorms are almost entirely lacking underclassmen boys while others are conversely teeming with testosterone.
Male enrollment decreases nationwide Thirty-eight percent of the Class of 2010 is male, a decline from last year’s 42 percent. However, Registrar Dan Giannini maintained that the gender composition of the Class of 2010 is fairly consistent with the general admission trend of the last several years, both within the College and nation-wide.

“The number of female students accepted to Vassar is larger because the applicant pool is so much bigger,” said Giannini. “The College received applications from about two female students for every one male, which has remained pretty steady over the years. There seem to be more females applying not only to Vassar, but to colleges in general.”

Giannini’s observations are substantiated by studies cited in USA Today, which recently reported that women comprise 57 percent of all students attending college. According to the U.S. Education Department, liberal arts colleges present an even wider gender gap, since women make up 61 percent of matriculating students.

Giannini referred to the statistics of incoming male students as evidence that the Admissions Office does not compromise the College’s high standards in the interest of attaining a gender balance. The average SAT score among male students this year was 1392, slightly higher than the 1381 averaged by female students.

Giannini did acknowledge the impact of Vassar’s Seven Sisters legacy on prospective male applicants. “The Vassar name is synonymous with a great female academic tradition, and many people still fail to realize that the school has gone co-ed,” said Giannini. “Sometimes I still get asked about what it’s like to work at an institution of all women.”
ResLife to alter dorm assignment plans
Enrollment rates were not the sole causes of the perceived gender imbalance, and the Office of Residential Life acknowledged that certain oversights in dorm assignment resulted in a considerably more pronounced gender gap. Residential Life pays attention to the lifestyle preferences, personalities, and habits of students when assigning roommates and dormitories. However, dorm assignments of male and female students are done at random, sometimes creating overlooked pockets of all-male or all-female residents. According to Director of Residential Life Luis Inoa, letters containing residence details are sent to freshmen almost immediately after the dorm assignment is complete, leaving Residential Life with little time to evaluate the gender split.

“The College needs to slow down the process of residence assignment in the future, because so much is going on in the summer and it’s easy for certain things to be overlooked,” said Inoa. “By the time we realized that huge gender disproportions existed, students had already been sent their roommates’ names and room assignments, and would likely have been upset by the change. What we need is to have more patience.” Inoa suggested that in the future, Residential Life may designate rooms by gender to promote the integration of male and female students, and take could take additional time to consider a comprehensive floor plan of the dorms before sending assignments to students.
Effects on Student Fellow Groups
Student Fellow groups finding themselves with an unbalanced ratio of new male and female students have been most affected the oversights of Residential Life. The small groups are intended to help integrate new students into a diverse student body, and the ratio has created concerns that freshmen are not having experiences integral to their life at Vassar.

“What Vassar has promoted to incoming students is a well-rounded experience,” said Inoa. “Students expect and deserve the opportunity to have meaningful interactions with folks from a variety of backgrounds. Gender diversity, as well as gender identity diversity, is a huge part of that.”

Inoa expressed an interest in holding focus groups with this year’s fellow groups, to evaluate the negative and positive impacts on the freshman experience.

Elizabeth Wachtel ’09 of Main House was faced with a predicament unlike that of the girls on the fourth floor of Josselyn: she is the student fellow of one of the few all-male student fellow groups on campus.

“All summer I had prepared myself for the same situation as last year, when this part of the building was almost all girls and one guy,” said Wachtel. “When I received the names of my freshmen, it was as if I’d spent three trimesters expecting a baby girl, and wound up with a baby boy.”
Girl-oriented plans for tea parties and manicures were replaced with videogame nights, “hall-ball” games, and poker.

“I really love my fellow group, and the experience has been hilarious,” said Watchel. “I’ve also had to make a much greater effort to mingle with other groups and bring Main together as a dorm more than in the past, which I think is a positive thing.”

Elias Zwang ’10, one of Wachtel’s fellowees, echoed the positive sentiments, but expressed some disappointment in his almost entirely male environment.

“So far my group has been better than I first expected,” said Zwang. “However, at times it feels a bit like summer camp around here, much more male-driven than some of the groups in other parts of the campus.”