The tempest struck last spring on a quiet, wooded campus in Oakland, California. Mills College--a prestigious 139-year-old liberal-arts school best known for its exclusively skirted student body--decided to permit men to enroll. The announcement was one in a long line of defections by all-female institutions. According to The Boston Globe, the national roster of women's schools had taken a beating over the past several decades, its number atrophying from 298 in 1960 to 93 in 1990. Ensuing protests--and there were plenty, from thoughtful editorials to strident demonstrations--made the intended waves: Mills's head honchos reversed their decision. Since then, women's colleges have been blazing a comeback, most notably last May, when two students from Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, chartered the Students' Alliance for Women's Colleges, an organization bent on restoring pride and popularity to single-sex education.
Naturally, we were interested. "Throughout our fourteen-year history of featuring pictorials on college women," says Playboy's Managing Photo Editor Jeff Cohen, "we've leaned toward schools from athletic conferences dominated by male sports. It was only fair, then, that we take our search to the women's colleges." Last October, Cohen dispatched Contributing Photographers David Chan and Arny Freytag and, as always, controversy brewed as the camera clicked--students picketed, USA Today tracked the story, Donahue hosted a TV debate. But Chan and Freytag returned triumphant, their portfolio spotlighting 14 schools in five states--four each in Georgia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; one each in New Jersey and Missouri. "Truth be told," says Cohen, "the women weren't so different from those featured in our other college pictorials. Yes, they were all intelligent and conscientious about sisterhood and women's issues. But they were also very friendly and very sexy."
So enjoy. And while you're at it, you can pick your favorite woman of the women's schools--help her win $5000 to further her education and possibly win yourself a trip to Playboy Mansion West--by calling 900-740-3636 (in the United States only), listening to the women and casting your vote. See page 143 for further details.
