Midway University in Kentucky was founded in 1847 as the Kentucky Female Orphan School. Today, the university enrolls slightly more than 1,000 undergraduate students and less than 100 graduate students. This past academic year, less than 200 students were enrolled in the residential Women’s College. The university’s evening and online classes as well as its graduate programs have been co-educational.
Now the board of trustees has voted to transition the college to full co-educational status. Men will be permitted to enroll as commuter students beginning this fall. Men will be accepted into the residential college for the spring 2017 semester. Athletic teams for men will begin in the fall of 2017.
The university has pledged to preserve existing programs for women and to supports its historic commitment to serving and empowering women.
John P. Marsden, president of Midway University, explained the decision to move to full co-education by stating that “it was time to look at options for our traditional undergraduate program. We see this as an opportunity to overcome existing challenges we have faced with tight budgets, decreased interest in single-sex education, and a national trend in declining enrollments. We cannot continue to preserve something that is unsustainable merely for nostalgic purposes.”
President Marsden added that “our founding mission was to provide young women with access to education at a time when education was mainly available to men. We have fulfilled that mission for 169 years and this decision will ensure that we continue to do so. This is not the first time the institution has transformed itself. We expanded programs and became a bachelor degree granting institution when more career options became available for women. The institution added evening, accelerated degree completion programs, online programs, and graduate programs for men and women in more recent years. Admitting men into our daytime undergraduate programs will allow us to serve a broader audience of traditional college students who will benefit from our programs and the learning environment we have established on campus.”