Rutgers President Makes Concession to Women’s College Supporters
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.
Rutgers President Richard McCormick on Tuesday laid out his vision of melding four of the university’s colleges into a new School of Arts and Sciences, while still preserving an all-female niche on the campus.
McCormick’s announcement marks a compromise for supporters of the all-female Douglass College, who pushed for months to preserve their school as the university moved to merge it with three other colleges.
“We envision a campus in which students are empowered, faculty are reconnected to undergraduates and the public gains a much clearer understanding of a Rutgers education,’’ McCormick said in a statement.
Under McCormick’s plan, the Mabel Smith Douglass Residential College would function as a four-year program where women could stay in all-female dorms and take classes centered on women’s issues. However, it wouldn’t set its own graduation requirements.
