Deep Springs College, a nontraditional liberal arts college with a 26-member all-male student body, announced Sept. 17 that it would accept female students for the first time as early as summer 2013. Founded in 1917, Deep Springs is one of the last remaining all-male institutions of higher education.
"I think there was just a general sense that it was time," said Charlie Pletcher '12.5, a recent Deep Springs graduate, of the decision to open the college to women.
Deep Springs' unique educational philosophy emphasizes academics, labor and self-governance with the mission of helping young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The college, nestled deep in California's High Desert, is also a working cattle-ranch and alfalfa farm, which the students run while pursuing academic studies. Students attend the college for two years, after which many transfer into four-year undergraduate programs at top universities.
Amity Wilczek, chair of the natural sciences at Deep Springs and a former postdoctoral research associate at Brown, echoed Pletcher's sentiments. "It's something that has been thought about here for quite a long time," she said. "The college is constantly reevaluating certain parts of its mission and education."
Pletcher said the all-male student body is not the defining characteristic of Deep Springs' unique experience, and he does not think women will change the fundamental culture of the college. The school's atypical educational structure — students hold many administrative roles — and relative isolation will continue to foster the same type of community support, he said.
"All of our emotional and intellectual and social support essentially comes from 25 other guys, and that becomes really important to the experience," he said.
"The applications committee really spends a long time trying to put together a student body that is diverse and that works together well as a community. We're hoping female applications will allow us more diversity," Wilczek said. "Going co-ed has the potential to strengthen the college even more."
Tyler Bourgoise '15, a Deep Springs alum who transferred to Brown this fall, also said he thinks the decision to accept female applications will enhance the overall quality of the college. But he said he feels the culture of the college will change.
"I think there are sides of my peers and of myself that I got to see that I wouldn't have if there were women there," he said. "Not because women would have canceled it, but because the males themselves would have been more apprehensive." But Bourgoise said he thinks the experience of going to Deep Springs will still be unique.
"Your first year in college is its own kind of weird," Pletcher said. "(Deep Springs) is weird in its own way. You wake up at 4 a.m. and milk cows. … But I'm sure there are also weird things about living in Keeney. It's just a different kind of weird."
The time frame for matriculating female students is still not entirely clear, Wilczek said. The college may begin accepting female applications as early as next year, but she said an official decision will likely be reached by the upcoming summer.
