Students look back on eventful year at Randolph College

A senior, Heather Wilson had shifted her focus to preparing for graduation as she returned to the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in August.

As she moved in, she saw a few men on campus and figured they were there to help sisters or girlfriends unpack.

Then she noticed they held key cards.

“I was like, ‘Wow. Okay. That’s a student. I’m going to have to get used to that,’” she said.

The year before, she had protested these very men entering campus. And then there they were, a symbol of the new Randolph College.

Some of the returning women didn’t seem to care after a summer to cool off from the heated year before. Others returned more upset than ever.

Wilson, from Seattle, was caught in the middle.

“I wasn’t angry at any of the first-years,” she said. “It’s not their fault that we went coed.”

The new year started off rocky as accusations flew of men catcalling, walking through campus shirtless and yelling obscenities at the seniors-only dorm.

Some of the stories had remnants of truth, said Wilson. Others were exaggerated rumors that seemed to perpetuate the emotional distress on campus.

In the same semester, students also grappled with the announcement of cuts in faculty plus the planned sale of four treasured paintings from the school’s Maier Museum of Art.

But as the fall semester wore on, extensive interviews with 16 students show that the atmosphere on campus slowly began to change.

Women and men began to get to know each other, joke with each other, even befriend and date each other.

Today, Wilson and 147 other women will graduate and mark the conclusion of the school’s first coed year.

‘We’re here to continue on that legacy’

First-year Stephanie Millholland knew the school was going through a transition, but didn’t realize how much it would affect her until she moved from Spotsylvania to her new home.

“The first week or so of orientation, when not many of the upperclasswomen were here, I felt really secure,” she said.

“But then when they started coming here, I did get a little scared because I started to see a little of that animosity. That really shook me, it really saddened me. But then definitely, as the year has progressed, it has gotten so much better.”

“Right away when I came here, I had to figure out how to deal with change and conflict,” she said. “I live in an all-girls dorm, so I’m surrounded by these independent and strong women, and they have really inspired me.”

In April, the Chorale she is a part of sang “The Women,” a piece commissioned from a local composer.

“It was written specifically for us. The first time we sang it, we were all moved to tears,” she said. “It really rang home that we can’t forget, that we’re here to continue on that legacy and also to make our own. But to always uphold the legacies that those who came before us upheld.”

Little brother/big sister

During the school’s November tradition of Ring Week, first-year Jared Perminter fought to disprove the widespread notion that the school’s special events would dissolve with the arrival of men.

The tradition calls for first-years to secretly choose a junior, leave them presents, decorate their dorm doors and design a scavenger hunt that ends with the juniors receiving their class ring.

Perminter chose junior Janice Williams, who became a resident advisor so she could preserve the aspects of the school that she loves.

He decorated her door with yellow and blue, her favorite colors.

The décor remained up all year, and Perminter has become like a little brother to his junior.

They both live in the Fredericksburg area, and often ride home together.

Now, Perminter is in training to also become an RA.

“Those traditions really livened things up, and I believe they’ve played a part in bringing our community together, too,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing that we’ve got to do now is keep to those traditions, and when the new classes come in teach them the traditions so they can last.”

‘What’s happened to our school?’

Having men at the school didn’t seem like such a big deal to sophomore roommates Robin Rinker and Cynthia Leonard.

But then October hit, and everything fell apart.

That was the month the college announced a tightening of expenses through the elimination of nine full-time faculty positions and five academic departments, including Russian — in which Rinker had hoped to complete a concentration.

Rinker, who came to the school from Stephens City, felt that the administration had swept her aspirations aside.

“That hurt me more than anything,” she said. “I came here because I was an individual. I really was not just a person in a crowd… I’m studying abroad in England next year, and I’m really worried about what it’s going to be like my senior year.”

Leonard, who is from Chincoteague on the Eastern Shore, wondered if her major would be next. All the changes made her question whether the school would lose its strong academic reputation and become just another small, liberal arts college.

“Robin and I were just sitting in our room crying at one point because we were like, ‘What’s happened to our school?’” she said. “Something about the school, the spirit of the school and having it be a community where nobody is forgotten, has kind of just gone away.”

One male student: ‘I always felt accepted’

First-year student Nick Marshall, one of the first of 73 men admitted to Randolph after it adopted coeducation, now opposes the decision that allowed him to attend the school he has come to love.

His first few weeks after moving in were filled with awkward stares by the women who hadn’t adjusted to men on campus.

But after Marshall, from Kingsport, Tenn., got to know the women he was going to school with, that changed, he said.

“I always felt accepted, like no matter what I was doing,” he said, adding that he realized just how unique his classmates were. “I think that the guys who talk to the upperclasswomen on a daily basis and who know them are probably treated nicer.”

“I think because the upperclasswomen are part of a single- sex institute, and they still consider it that, that has made them different than any other women I have ever met. These are women that are strong, and they’re independent. And I grew up with that, but this is just a totally different type of woman.”

That also has made him appreciate and want to participate in the school’s rich history of traditions, he said.

“I feel that I owe something to the women who graduated before me that made this place what it is today,” he said. “So I feel that I have to do my best.”

He plans to double major in history and, appropriately, women’s studies.

‘Everyone just said, ‘enough is enough’ ’

It was a steep learning curve for incoming students who, in many ways, were held to higher standards than previous classes, said student government president and senior Hillary Peabody .

“Some of the guys came on campus and thought that cat-calling would be OK. Like, ‘hey baby, looking good,’ or stupid things like that… They had to learn that that wasn’t OK.”

In that first week, she addressed the issues at a special assembly where she told everyone what’s acceptable behavior at Macon.

But the damage was done to the small community.

“It was only a small minority who were doing that but it really seemed like, you know, if five guys had said, ‘hey honey,’ — Everyone knew about it. It was like it was everywhere.”

So when Heather Wilson overheard guys “say that they had come to save this place and that we don’t appreciate what they’re doing,” it was hard for her not to take it personally, she said.

“That sort of attitude, that really bothered me,” she said. “I wanted to be OK with the guys being here on the surface, but it really kind of tore me up inside to know that some of the fears that I had were coming true.”

The breaking point came after a group of first-years taunted a secret society on campus as members walked around campus in robes and hoods.

Most students know the proper way to act around such a group, she said.

“You just look down, turn around, walk away. You don’t look at them, that’s just how it is.”

Instead, Wilson watched as a group of first-years yelled at and chased the society.

Within the next couple of days, an incident involving hooded figures in the Bell Hall dorms had the campus in an uproar.

Many pointed fingers at the seniors, Peabody said. Others blamed the men.

“Everything just kind of blew up, and everyone just said, ‘Enough is enough,’” she said.

A student-organized community meeting, held symbolically in the seniors-only Webb Hall, allowed everyone to talk out their feelings and move on, she said.

‘At first, you know people were kind of glaring at me. But I’m very extroverted, so I just went over, sat down and began a conversation. And after five minutes we were all on friendly terms. That’s the key thing, I think… I’m very optimistic. In the beginning, there was kind of this tone of depression. Now it’s a lot more vibrant.’ — Karl Sakas (far right), First-year student from Fairfax County boxes fellow student Beth Parrantio during the annual Mac Doodle Day on campus.
JILL NANCE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE