Nonbinary students push for changes to Hollins University's admissions policies

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Nonbinary students push for changes to Hollins University's admissions policies

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Women's colleges have changed policies for a generation that increasingly identifies as nonbinary, but Hollins University in Roanoke has not. (Story originally aired on ATC on Nov. 26, 2021.)

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Women's colleges are adapting their admissions policies to reflect a shift in the way that people understand gender³. Some students identify as transgender or nonbinary, not exclusively male or female. So who belongs at a women's college? We have an encore presentation of this story by NPR's Melissa Block from Hollins University in Southwest Virginia.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

MELISSA BLOCK: If you go to Hollins, you can bring your own horse with you. The school is well known for its equestrian⁴ team. I find first-year student Diana Combs brushing down her ride in the campus stable. The equine program was a big draw for her, and that Hollins is a historically women's college is a plus.

DIANA COMBS: It just feels safer overall, especially we have no frats on here, which is a lot better. So yeah, horses and all women. Yeah.

BLOCK: But that all-women idea can be complicated for students who don't see themselves that way, like Kendall Sanders, a Hollins senior from Little Rock who's nonbinary.

KENDALL SANDERS: I think it honestly started maybe my - the end of my freshman⁵ year. I was just thinking, and I was like, I don't think I care about being a girl.

BLOCK: Which for Sanders, coming from the Bible Belt, was a pretty big deal.

SANDERS: I really just want to escape the binary¹. I don't want to spend my life trying to prove that I am one gender. I want to wake up, put on some clothes, go out into my day. If you perceive me as one gender, that's OK, too. But for me, it just is what it is.

BLOCK: Here's how Hollins' latest admissions policy works. If you're a transgender woman, you can apply. If you're a trans man, no. But if you transitioned to male after you get to Hollins, you can stay. And that's an important shift. Before 2019, if you transitioned while at Hollins, you'd have to transfer out. Finally, if you're nonbinary, Hollins says no, your application will not be accepted. To be admitted, you have to, quote, "consistently live and identify as a woman," and that's messed up, says sophomore⁶ Willow⁷ Seymour, who is genderqueer.

WILLOW SEYMOUR: Personally, I think it's pretty offensive to exclude nonbinary people. I know that historically it's a women's college, but a lot of people see it as, like, a refuge from patriarchal structures, and nonbinary people deserve to be as much a part of that as anyone else.

(SOUNDBITE OF CARILLON RINGING)

BLOCK: The Hollins chapel⁸ carillon rings out across campus each day at noon. This is a tightknit community, small, just over 700 undergrads, with a proud history, educating women in Virginia going back to 1842. Its reputation as a finishing school for Southern debutantes⁹ is long gone. The writer Annie Dillard went here. So did photographer Sally Mann. A promotional school slogan says, women who are going places start at Hollins.

JAIYA MCMILLAN: And I think that's something that should be phased out because there are so many people here who are going places who are not just women, you know?

BLOCK: That's Jaiya McMillan, a Hollins junior, vice¹⁰ president of the student government. She's wearing a wishbone charm on her necklace, a totem of how lucky she feels to be at Hollins. Her mother went here too - class of 1995.

MCMILLAN: I know that she talks about it as a women's college, and there are still professors here who only use she/her pronouns when talking about the student body, which obviously I don't think really fits what Hollins looks like anymore.

BLOCK: McMillan, who is cisgender, says Hollins should be a place that welcomes all nonbinary and transgender students, too.

MCMILLAN: Absolutely, absolutely. I think maybe a school with everything under the sun, except for cis men.

BLOCK: So no cisgender men.

MCMILLAN: No, thank you (laughter).

BLOCK: If it were up to Hollins professor LeeRay Costa, the college would admit nonbinary students - anyone, she says, whose gender makes them marginalized in society. Costa has taught at Hollins for 20 years, has seen the name of her department change from women's studies to gender and women's studies, has seen the number of nonbinary students grow, especially within the last five years or so.

LEERAY COSTA: We see a lot more fluidity, so people moving along a spectrum¹¹ and not feeling like they have to be fixed¹² in one place and exploring.

BLOCK: As to the fear that something will get lost or diluted¹³ if the door to women's colleges is opened too wide...

COSTA: That question is - to me, it's rooted in this either-or binary of, like, it's either for women or it's not for them. And I reject that binary. I don't think it needs to be an either-or kind of question.

EM MILLER¹⁴: Hi, my name is Em Miller. I use they/them pronouns. I am a senior, and I am from Amelia, Va.

BLOCK: Miller will often serve as a sounding board for younger students who want to try out new pronouns or a new name.

MILLER: There's kind of this, like, wading¹⁵ pool area where you kind of just dip your toes in, and you see how you feel about it and then you go further.

BLOCK: Miller was a sophomore when the Hollins Board of Trustees updated its admissions policy in 2019, adding the new language that specifically excludes nonbinary applicants¹⁶. Miller says once you're on campus, Hollins feels inclusive. Students and faculty¹⁷ embrace gender diversity. But there's a disconnect with the admissions policy, and that doesn't sit well.

MILLER: It makes me feel ignored, and it almost feels like I'm battling against what Hollins Board of Trustees has kind of placed as this looming¹⁸ cloud over students at Hollins.

BLOCK: I put that concern to the chair of Hollins' board, Alexandra Trower.

ALEXANDRA TROWER: I have a lot of compassion¹⁹ and empathy for those feelings, but we are a women's institution.

BLOCK: Not just a historically women's college, Trower says, but a present women's college - important, she says, at a time when women have still not achieved equity²⁰.

TROWER: I very much appreciate that students may have a different definition or desire to have us be in a different place. But we're very clear and open about what our mission is. And people have a choice about where they go to university.

BLOCK: Trower says it's possible the board's thinking on this will evolve. That's the message, too, from Hollins' new president, Mary Dana Hinton.

MARY DANA HINTON: You've heard students say that they feel unseen or invisible, and that's really hard. And I don't think it's unexpected that we will continue to listen and learn and reassess the policy as needed.

BLOCK: Overshadowing this discussion is the fact that a dozen historically women's colleges have either closed or gone coed in the last seven years, faced with declining enrollment²¹ or financial trouble, each school trying to figure out how to adapt in a more genderfluid world. Melissa Block, NPR News, Roanoke, Va.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAURA MISCH'S "CLIMB")

1 binary   

adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星

参考例句：

• Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
• Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试，把这个数本身变成二进制数。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

4 equestrian   

adj.骑马的；n.马术

参考例句：

• They all showed extraordinary equestrian skills.他们的骑术都很高超。
• I want to book two equestrian tickets.我想订两张马术比赛的票。

5 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

6 sophomore   

n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的

参考例句：

• He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
• I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。

7 willow   

n.柳树

参考例句：

• The river was sparsely lined with willow trees.河边疏疏落落有几棵柳树。
• The willow's shadow falls on the lake.垂柳的影子倒映在湖面上。

8 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

9 debutantes   

n.初进社交界的上流社会年轻女子( debutante的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• For it was as the curtain raiser for society debutantes that Almack's was famous. 集中营之所以著名，因为对初次社交来说它就像是的一个开场戏。 来自互联网

10 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

11 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

12 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

13 diluted   

无力的，冲淡的

参考例句：

• The paint can be diluted with water to make a lighter shade. 这颜料可用水稀释以使色度淡一些。
• This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields. 这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。

14 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

15 wading   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The man tucked up his trousers for wading. 那人卷起裤子，准备涉水。
• The children were wading in the sea. 孩子们在海水中走着。

16 applicants   

申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were over 500 applicants for the job. 有500多人申请这份工作。
• He was impressed by the high calibre of applicants for the job. 求职人员出色的能力给他留下了深刻印象。

17 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

18 looming   

n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• The foothills were looming ahead through the haze. 丘陵地带透过薄雾朦胧地出现在眼前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Then they looked up. Looming above them was Mount Proteome. 接着他们往上看，在其上隐约看到的是蛋白质组山。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 回顾与展望

19 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

20 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

21 enrollment   

n.注册或登记的人数；登记

参考例句：

• You will be given a reading list at enrollment.注册时你会收到一份阅读书目。
• I just got the enrollment notice from Fudan University.我刚刚接到复旦大学的入学通知书。