157 The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College a private institution to the college s governing committee Recently there have been discussions about ending Grove College s century old tradition of all

The following recommendation suggests that the present president and staff of Grove College do not like the idea of co-education of male and female students. Since all-female education is a unique century-old tradition of school, the president and staff are concerned of the idea of co-education. However, there is a few questions need to be answered to persuade the committee.

On the following recommendation, it says that students are against the idea of co-education, and it based on survey results of the students. The result shows that 80% of “students” want to remain all-female, and so do 50% of the alumnae. However, the survey results are too vague to show the true picture. Who is the “students”? It should be clear about the “students” whether it means only present students, or past students also. Since alumnae had a separate survey, the results might be doubled.

Moreover, we cannot be sure if the result shows the major opinions. If only a fraction of students answered the survey, it cannot represent all student opinions about the idea of co-education. For example, 40 out of 200 students, 20 percent of the school students, conducted the survey, and 32 students, 80 percent of 40 students, answered that they do not want remain all-female education system. It only represents 16 percent of all student opinions. This fallacy is applied to alumnae survey as well. It is not quite feasible conducting a survey of all alumnae.

Second of all, they recommend remaining all-female education because they expect of improve morals, and financial support from alumnae. However, they prevaricated about the details of both matters. Because improvement of morals is uncountable, it needs to be compared with other private schools that adopting female and male co-education system. Also, the financial support from the alumnae is worth to look into it. How much financial support are we expecting if we keep the tradition, or if we transit to co-education? The committee voted for co-education because it is the opportunity to get more students, and bring more money. Finance of the school should be examined and compared in both case.

In this recommendation, they brought up a survey results which we are not sure if is valid information, and only negative aspects of co-education system. If they want to this recommendation to be considered, they need to consider both drawbacks and benefits.