Shannon interview, April 15, 1996

[Begin Tape 2, Side 1]
Warren: This is Mame Warren. I'm still with Edgar Shannon in Charlottesville,
Virginia, on the 15th of April 1996.

         We just got to talking about his period on the board, and I'm real excited,
because you were involved in the coeducation decision. Tell me about your experiences
with that.
Shannon: Well, I think it really was a fine experience for the board, because we did
spend a little over a year, I suppose, with each committee of the board, undertaking a
thorough study of what coeducation would mean, how it would affect that area of
Washington and Lee. By the time we got through with that analysis, of course, it was
solid background we needed to make the decision, but we knew more about
Washington and Lee than we'd ever known before. So I think the board really had the
feeling of—I certainly had the feeling that I understood and knew more about the entire
institution than ever before. So I think it made us all better board members than we
would have been otherwise.

         We had told John Wilson, as a part of the interview—I was on the selection
committee for John Wilson. When we interviewed him, he actually said he admired
Washington and Lee for, to some extent, sticking to its guns, maintaining an all-male
institution when so many people are going otherwise. But we also told him—and I'd

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been on the committee that reviewed coeducation—when was it, in '75, I guess—and
we came to the conclusion that everything was going well, and other than the fact that
we were denying a Washington and Lee education to women, there was no compelling
need, in terms of the quality of the institution—alumni support, finances, and so on—to
become coeducational, but we felt, in our report, that situations can change, and the
whole educational ethos and the circumstances of higher education can change, and
we'd need to revisit it, and be prepared to revisit it as circumstances warranted.

         So we told John, and I think some of the other members of the board weren't
aware of this until, really, at the time we were making the decision. I was glad we had
the chance to clear it up, actually, but the selection committee had told him that we
realized that things could change, and that we felt that he should be free to examine
this. If he became president, he was free to examine coeducation. We weren't saying
it's cast in stone.

         So after he'd been there a year, maybe into his second year, he was getting word
from Hartog that there were real problems in admissions and we weren't getting the
quality of admissions. Our admission was dropping off, and the faculty were getting
disturbed about the quality they were seeing in the classroom. So he asked Hartog to
make a study and make a report to the board, and Hartog had done a very thorough
study that showed trends, he felt, in the next ten years, and that the trends were going
to be going against us, particularly because we were only able to deal with half of the
cohort that was out there—half or maybe not quite even half—and that probably we
were going to be slipping down academically pretty badly.

         So at that point, John said he would like to study the whole thing further, and
would the board go ahead and study it by committees, which we did. Certainly on the
academic affairs side, it was perfectly clear that our selectivity, and the board scores and
rank in class and everything, was dropping. Over a three-year period, it was just
dropping steadily, and it didn't seem it would reverse. Particularly the Student Life

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Committee, they were very much concerned, of course, about how it would affect the
fraternities and athletics and all of that sort of thing.

         And then the question of the size of the institution was a big one. We felt that
one of the strengths of Washington and Lee was its relative smallness. I guess the
Finance Committee felt it would help the finances. At any rate, we were in a position
where the committees all studied the thing thoroughly and all made their reports. Of
course, having been through it over here, at the University of Virginia—I was president
when we did it over here. Of course, we had the added impetus. Legally we didn't
have a leg to stand on as a state institution. Washington and Lee was not under that
compulsion, but, still, I think we were all beginning to be concerned that we were
isolating ourselves from a lot of experience that we needed and that men needed.

         At any rate, we had a few people who were diehards, to some extent, but a very
open-minded board, I think. I guess we had a preliminary meeting where it pretty
clear, where we had the reports from the committees, I think. No, I guess we had a
special meeting in the summer, specifically to address this, and I guess we had a day
meeting for committee reports and discussions. Then we decided that we would have
the final discussion and vote. There was some concern, a feeling that it ought to be
decisive, that we didn't want to be in a position where it was a split vote, maybe only
carried by one vote or two votes, and so the board was split. We came to a basic
agreement that whichever way it went—and at that point, literally, I had no sense of
which way it was going to go. I felt very strongly that we should go coeducational,
particularly on the academic side, but I no idea where it was going.

         There was then some idea that maybe we ought to pass a resolution that unless it
was, say, two-thirds—I think there were twenty-two on the board then, something like
that—unless we had seventeen for it or against it, we wouldn't go with the majority.
We'd stay where we were until we could go with it further. But we voted that down.
We decided we ought to leave it just however it came out. And then we agreed that

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whichever way it went, everybody would fall in line, that we weren't going to have any
minority reports, we weren't going to have any people trying to undermine things. We
would stand by whichever way it came out.

         Then we started going around the table and letting everybody have his say. We
started with the president here, and started on his left, going around. I was next to the
last one, I think, over here. But by the time it got around to me, it was pretty clear we
were going to go—I mean, we were going to go coeducational. But, of course, I put in
my strong view about it from the point of view of academics.

         Also, we had a major survey of the alumni. We got a firm to do a major survey,
and the alumni, obviously—I've forgotten exactly the figures, but they were something
like 76 percent against coeducation, if you just—on coeducation, or not, on the
"druthers." But they also had a question—they had other questions—but they had a
question, "If it's a matter of the academic quality of the institution that hinges on
coeducation, would you approve it?" I think it was something like 82 percent said if it
was a question of academic quality, if that was what was required, why, they would
support it. So that was evidence of some pretty strong support, even though sort of
intuitively most people felt, this is the way it is and we don't want to change it, it's done
well for all these centuries.

         At any rate, by the time we got through, it was pretty—and some people said
they woke up in the middle of the night and made the decision finally that they should
be in favor of it, and hadn't made up their mind until then.

         I think that a few people blamed John, were a little bitter about it, because they
thought he had come with an agenda to make it coeducational, which was not so at all.
Those of us who had been on the selection committee, we knew that it was just the
opposite, actually, and he had only come to it and finally recommended it through
careful study and evaluation of the whole situation, and feeling for the future of the
institution. And he was very wise, too. I think he said to me, he said—he may have

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said it to others, probably did—that he felt we had to get this behind at the beginning of
his time, that either we'd get it settled one way or the other, and go ahead, or it would
be dragging on, and it would be interfering with everything the whole time. And so I
think he was very wise to go ahead and face it right away, even though it was going to
be a hardship, and he got a lot of hate mail.

         At any rate, we then took a straw vote, and I think it was seventeen to six, or
whatever, seventeen to five, or whatever it was. So we had what we would have
required had we passed that resolution. Then we took a formal vote and passed it, and
went out and told the press. A couple of the people, several of us, I think about four of
us, went to the press conference, and at least one member who had been very much
opposed to it came right along and stood right behind it. So we never had any
acrimony or division on the board about it at all. It was really, I thought, a very
heartwarming, wonderful process that we went through to come to a decision that
turned out to be vital, and a great help to Washington and Lee in the long run.
Warren: Did you ever have any hesitations, as an alumnus, about doing it, or had your
experiences at the University of Virginia overwritten any hesitations you might have
had?
Shannon: Well, back in '75, when I was on the committee, I was certainly in favor of
staying single-sex then, but by the time we got to the second go-round, it was clear to
me that the welfare of the institution really depended on it. And so it wasn't just that
we needed—it wasn't because we were losing a lot of women, but the quality of the
men was really deteriorating, because men didn't want to go to an all-male institution
anymore.

         We were still being considered a selective institution, but that last year we
admitted something like 60 percent of the people that applied, so we were not selective
at all. Davidson and other institutions that really were our peers had already done it
and had excellent results from it, so all the testimony we got from other places, too, was

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very favorable. So I had no qualms about it at all, thought it was essential, and, of
course, it rescued our selectivity. I think this year, we're something like 30 percent, only
accepting 30 percent of our applications. So we're in the high selective area now.

         And, before, the faculty were opposed to it, also. There were only a few people
in the faculty. I guess the time before, the faculty were split on it. They were slightly—I
think it was nearly fifty-fifty, maybe 51 percent for it, for coeducation. This time, the
faculty was over 80 percent for it. I mean, the faculty were really demanding it, almost.
They could see what was happening in the classroom.
Warren: Well, there are a lot of grateful people, to you and to the people who made
that brave decision. It was a brave decision.
Shannon: Yeah, well, it was, and we took it very seriously. As I say, I think we really
did an excellent—it wasn't something we hurried into or jumped into. We did an
excellent exercise of leading up to it, and everyone, or most everyone, was convinced,
and the people who opposed it, as I say, fell right into line. I think even all of them
have come around now.
Warren: I don't see anybody who's regretting it now.
Shannon: Had a little tension there at first, because some of the residual male classes
were not as strong as the entering classes and they were challenged a lot by these
women, these bright women who came in, too. There was a little friction for a couple of
years, but, still, considering everything, it was a very smooth transition.
Warren: Well, thank you. I've taken a great deal of your time, but I am really, really
grateful to have gotten that down.
Shannon: Well, I'm grateful to have a chance to talk with you.
Warren: It's been really delightful, as everyone promised me it would be. Everyone
said, "Oh, you're going to see Edgar Shannon? You're going to have a great time."
Thank you.
[End of interview]

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