The light was fading. There was one spot still lit by the sun, a pretty round cupola structure called the engagement tower. I wanted to perch some students there in conversation. The tradition with the engagement tower, however, is that, if you stand in it and you’re not engaged, you never will be. "I’m not going to go there! I won’t get engaged if I do!" said every single student that I tried. "I’ve already gone up the wrong way on the staircases too many times, and that means I won’t graduate on time." Something of the sort is up as well with Mary’s Garden, a pretty, hedge enclosed space between two buildings that would be a nice nook within which to study. But it is perpetually empty, because anyone who does so would never graduate, according to tradition.
"So where are these critical reasoning skills you’re supposed to be learning?" I asked. The students were unmoved. "I don’t want to take any chances. I just won’t go into the engagement tower." What year is it here? 1952? I found a spot on the lawn that still held the last of the light, and shot there instead.
Everyone was nervous about what my reception would be like here at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. The community relations people, unlike at other campuses I visit, deliberately avoided sending out an email announcing that a photographer would be on campus working on admissions materials. Perhaps they feared spontaneous protests would erupt around me as an agent of the change. Instead, I had the opposite response from the students. They recognize that the college needs to improve its marketing, which was one of the reasons it had to let go of its single sex distinction. I realized that I need have no qualms about ferreting out opinions on the switch to coed.
The consensus opinion I detected could be summarized thusly: We don’t like it. But we’re resigned to the fact that it’s going to happen. The way they brought it about totally sucked. They didn’t communicate anything before dropping this bombshell, and they handled it terribly. Someone should apologize.
After a class a pair of students dragged me down to the organic garden. "Please, make sure this gets into the admissions materials. There’s a rumor they want to build an athletic field here for the boys." I was clear with them that I had no control over that, but I welcomed the chance to make the photographs.
The sloped site looked like an unlikely target for anything but a slalom course. With this kind of activism in the student body though, students who want to see the college survive and thrive, the administration need not worry. It’s the best resource they have.
You laugh, but the traditions at RMWC... or rather, "Randolph" are serious business. Looking at the admissions materials make me miss my old school. Beautiful work.
Posted by: Alexa | April 17, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Dear Alexa,
I'm sorry if the tone might have sounded disrespectful. I didn't intend that. But I was experiencing a cultural disconnect--it truly was, and still is, opaque to me. It's as much me as anything.
I was just there a few weeks ago, setting up a lot of shots with imported males. I have to say it felt sacrilegious to be having a couple of guys throwing a football on the green. Way too much testosterone. It will be an interesting transition.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | April 17, 2007 at 08:09 PM