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74) The president of Grove Collegehas recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition ofall-female education and begin admitting men. Pointing to other all-femalecolleges that experienced an increase in applications after adopting coeducation,the president argues that coeducation would lead to a significant increase inapplications and enrollment. However, the director of the alumnae associationopposes the plan. Arguing that all-female education is essential to the veryidentity of the college, the director cites annual surveys of incoming studentsin which these students say that the school's all-female status was the primaryreason they selected Grove. The director also points to a survey of Grovealumnae in which a majority of respondents strongly favored keeping the collegeall female.
Write a response in which you discuss whatquestions would need to be answered in order to decide whether therecommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure toexplain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate therecommendation.
In this argument above, the president ofGrove College (GC) and the director of the alumnae association hold twoantithetical views on the coeducation. To persuade each other, they both citesvaries evidences and data to support their assertion. Careful examination ofthe recommendations, however, reveals that lots of problems still need to beclarified before implementing the decision.
The threshold question conjured up in mymind is that whether the coeducation adopted in other all-female colleges appliesfor GC. Since no specific information about the applications in otherall-female colleges is provided, it’s irresponsible to conclude that theenrollment in GC would have a significant increase after coeducation. It isentirely possible that where the all-female college implementing thecoeducation happened to have a significant increase of male graduates in highschool this year, so the entrance standard have to modify according to thechange. Or it is because the boy graduates proved to be more qualified andsuitable to the college, hence the all-female college made the reform in orderto enhance the applications’ level and be competitive with other colleges.Lacking such evidence the President of GC should approach the idea of makingcoeducation with more consideration.
Another question need to be elucidated forthe director of the alumnae is that whether the annual surveys of incomingstudents is convincing. To effectively respond to the question, the evidencepresented here is far from cogent. The director neither inform us the grade ofthe students responded nor the proportion of the students who choose GCprimarily due to the very identity of the all-female. The lower the proportion,the less reliable the result of the survey. If the statistics here is ten yearsago, then apparently, the students’ opinion cannot take into considerationwhile making the decision.
Furthermore, assuming that the annualsurvey of incoming students is representative, valid, and reliable, whether thesurvey of the alumnae would have a significant influence on GC needs to beinterpreted. Lacking the evidence that the alumnae who participated in thesurvey can typify all the graduates and hence can make a difference on GC, thesurvey cannot lend any support to the director’s refute. It’s obvious why thealumnae opposed are more likely to join the survey. Additionally, the directoralso fails to provide the exact percentage who opposed in the survey. The “majority”description certainly cannot be persuasive adequately.
However, the coeducation decision should beensured after sufficient factors taken into consideration, such as thepotential applicants’ gender distribution after coeducation, the expense offundamental installation enhancement, the major provided for students aftercoeducation and the faculties’ opinion and so on. Not until these doubts abovecan be elucidated, neither the president nor the director can convince me. |
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发表于 2012-3-8 22:44:04
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