Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU), the only remaining women’s college in the state, has announced it will start accepting undergraduate men come fall 2023, a decision that has sparked criticism from some of the school’s students, faculty, and alumni.
The move was announced Sept. 13, marking the end of NDMU’s nearly 125-year tenure as a women-only higher ed institution. The school – founded in 1895 – was the first U.S. Catholic university to grant four-year degrees to women.
“On Sept. 12, 2022, the NDMU Board of Trustees voted unanimously that the University become co-educational and enroll men into the traditional undergraduate program starting in fall 2023,” the NDMU announcement read. “The decision came nearly a year after the Board formed an Enrollment Task Force to review the enrollment trends of women’s colleges, as well as undergraduate data nationally and statewide. By becoming co-ed, NDMU is honoring and expanding its historical mission to educate leaders to transform the world. This decision will allow NDMU to provide its distinctive model of inclusive transformational education to more women and men.”
The school cited that it has “historically gone where the need is” and that it “has an opportunity to expand access to its inclusive and transformational education to more women and men” as its reasons for the change, adding that the school’s foundresses, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, supported the decision.
Damita C. McDonald, NDMU senior director for university communications & public relations, said in an email that finances were not a factor in the board's decision to move in this direction, noting that the school is in “a strong financial position.”
Both the work of the task force and the vote to go co-ed were confidential, McDonald said.
“I believe the vast majority of faculty are appalled by how the process was done, about how this was handled, about how no one was consulted," said one faculty who asked to remain anonymous, adding that the decision felt like a loss of shared governance and noted that faculty were not consulted.
