Related: Majors with more men than women | How each USM institution fares
Three female students approached Towson President Robert Caret a few months ago with a request.
"We need to get more men!," they said.
It's a common comment, although the men on campus may not agree.
"I think the ratio is perfect," sophomore Mickey Rubin said. "For girls it must be tough though."
Among undergraduates, the mix is almost exactly 40/60. This semester, 39.5 percent of undergraduates are men and 60.5 percent are women.
"It hasn't changed in decades," associate vice president for enrollment management Lonnie McNew said. "It's been roughly 60/40 for undergraduate students from the 60s until now."
He said a 3-to-2 mix is common for comprehensive institutions like Towson. And the gender gap is larger at the graduate level. Just one in four Towson graduate students are men.
On campuses nationwide, women outnumber men
Administrators are quick to point out that Towson isn't the only campus where the gender gap is visible.
"The national trend in education is that there are just more women than men enrolling in colleges," vice president for student affairs Deb Moriarty said.
Women have been in the majority on college campuses for about 25 years. A 2006 report by the American Council on Education found that the nationwide percentage of male undergraduates had dropped from 44 percent to 42 percent since 1996.
Recent reports have led experts to wonder whether enough is being done to support men at the college and university level.
"It seems we're losing a generation of young men in higher education, and we don't know why," outgoing provost and vice president for academic affairs James Brennan said.
Maryland, Bowie, Salisbury and University of Baltimore have gender mixes similar to Towson's. But compared to some other state schools, this University's ratio is relatively reasonable. At historically black Coppin State University, 77 percent of students are female.
"I'm sure it's more prevalent at institutions with majors in fields that are largely thought of as women-oriented," Moriarty said.
Caret agreed, citing the University's heritage as a teacher's school as the primary reason for the imbalance.
In 1866, when the Maryland State Normal School opened, female students were in the majority.
"We've always had a high percentage of women because of the programs we offer," he said.
Of Towson's five most popular undergraduate majors, only one - business administration - has more men than women. The others are female-dominated: elementary education and nursing are 94 percent women. Psychology is 80 percent women. Mass communication is 77 percent women.
Only one state institution, University of Maryland, College Park, has more men than women (51/49). Frostburg State University is almost perfectly balanced, with just six more men than women this semester. Both universities have engineering schools.
Women make up 94 percent of College of Education
Nowhere is the gender gap at Towson bigger than the College of Education. Of the 1,223 students pursuing an education degree, only 75 are men.
Melissa Glass, an elementary education and special education major, takes Towson classes at The Universities at Shady Grove. Within her cohort, there is one male and 23 females.
"The field of education definitely could use some more men," Glass said. "Male administrators tend to be more relaxed, yet still focused. Also, male students tend to respond better to male teachers."
But after two years of classes, the imbalance no longer bothers her, she said.
Kraig Nussbaum, a sophomore special education major, put it this way: "You kind of know when you get into education as a male you are going to be the minority and you have to be okay with it."
Other majors lean dramatically in favor of females. This semester, family studies has 11 males and 164 females; deaf studies has eight males and 122 females; health science has seven males and 96 females; occupational therapy has eight males and 138 females; and speech language pathology and audiology has three males and 162 females.
Towson's reputation for "good-looking ladies"
Among first-time undergraduate freshmen, Towson has pretty consistently had a 37/63 male to female ratio in the past five years. The exception was Fall 2003, when only 32 percent of the incoming freshmen class was male.
That year, Towson admitted 400 fewer students than the year before, making the admissions process more selective.
"Since we put so much weight on GPA, that would have reduced the men," who typically have lower high school grades, McNew said.
As Towson increases enrollment, maybe the gender gap is a selling point from an admissions point of view.
"A lot of male college freshmen come to Towson because it mostly consists of girls," senior elementary education major Kim Myers said.
Freshman finance major Jeff Glass didn't come here for that reason, but "I had heard that there were a lot of good-looking ladies here," he said.
The popular tale of Towson's third-place ranking in Playboy's poll of hottest college women is just a myth. As The Towerlight reported in 2001, "'Playboy' hasn't done college rankings since 1986, and even then they were rankings of 'party schools' not 'schools with hot women.'" TU didn't make it on the "party school" list either.
Still, maybe Towson's gender gap is an attractive quality for some prospective freshmen.
"I think we should use it more heavily in marketing," Caret joked.
Why the gap matters: learning and loving
The gender imbalance has real ramifications for campuses like Towson's.
Classes with just a handful of men could be missing important perspectives during class discussions and group projects.
"Most of the girls I meet in my classes I become real close with because I guess I offer a male opinion to a female-dominated major," Nussbaum said.
The gap also presents questions about representation on campus. Although women are more numerous on campus, Freeman said they may not be adequately represented at the top levels of student organizations.
"In general, if you look at leadership positions on campus and where females stand, even with this large percentage of female population, the leadership roles are not [in sync] with the statistics," she said.
For example, seven of the last nine Student Government Association presidents were men.
The gap can cause social challenges too. Freshman Shannon Robinson said the 40/60 imbalance creates "too much competition" in the dating world.
Enrollment management outreach specialist Barry Evans said the effects of the gap can linger long after graduation.
"As it relates to an increasing number of educated women, the challenge is, who do they marry? In many cases, unfortunately, due to how some men are programmed, their ability or comfort with the fact that their wife makes more money can be an issue for them," he said.
Towson experiments with ASAP program
Is it possible to enroll more males? A recent Towson pilot program had mixed results.
The Academic Special Admissions Program was first piloted in Fall 2005. It brought 70 to 80 students, mostly male, to TU who otherwise wouldn't have been admitted.
The students had low GPAs but high SAT scores. Most of these students happen to be male.
Students aren't recruited for the program.
"We just admit the students who apply to us. And in the past we haven't admitted them because they haven't been successful," McNew said.
Brennan said the program is expensive in terms of time and energy exerted by faculty and staff members, but the investment pays off.
"When we get them into the system, and the support system works, the boys succeed," Brennan said.
The support system involves mandatory study halls, individual advising sessions, and grade tracking.
Administrators are evaluating the program's strengths and weaknesses.
Their success rate is "better, probably much better, than students like them who have come before, but it's still not as good as overall," McNew said.
There is some concern that the ASAP students' scores and success rates could adversely impact the University's overall performance. Also, some of the students have transferred to other institutions.
"I don't know if it's something that we want to continue doing," McNew said, pointing out that it was intended to be a pilot, not a permanent program.
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