I'm not a Daisy

As the campus tour begins, my fellow prospective students and I settle into seats in a large lecture hall on campus.

The student tour guide moves to the front of the room and starts to recite her spiel. We quickly blaze through the more common topics of class size and campus safety when three unfamiliar words catch my attention: coordinate college system.

I had never heard this term.

But before I have a chance to ask, the tour guide begins to explain: the university originally started in 1840 as a male-only Baptist seminary called Richmond College.

It wasn't until 1914 that a corresponding women's college (Westhampton College) was opened. The two colleges--and consequently, the two sexes--remained segregated academically until 1920. At that time, Richmond College and Westhampton College began to operate concurrently under the banner of "the University of Richmond."

Students would--and still do--apply for admission to the University of Richmond, and get filtered into either Richmond College or Westhampton College based on what sex they mark on their application. And thus, the coordinate college system (two colleges operating within one university) was born.

The tour guide smiles as she assures us that everything is now fully integrated and that the system has little to no effect on current students' day-to-day lives. Little did I know how wrong that tour guide was--and it all started with a daisy.

Within my first month as a student at the University of Richmond, I received an email from a member of the student government association. Instead of a more common closing like "Sincerely" or "Regards," she concluded her message with "Daisy Love."

Obviously confused, I asked around and was informed by my female peers that the daisy is the flower of Westhampton College. My male peers had no idea what email I was referring to.

In the following months, I continued to receive emails that my male peers did not-emails, I must note, that with the liberal use of daisy clipart, pink fonts and the salutation of, "Hello, Ladies!" I slowly began to realize that these messages were only being sent to Westhampton College (read: female) students by members of the Westhampton College student government.

Richmond College (read: male) students received separate emails from the Richmond College student government.

Within that first month, I also started to hear about an event called Proclamation Night.

First-year female students are contacted by the administration within the first few weeks of the school year and informed about this September ceremony in which they become officially recognized as members of Westhampton College.

Donned in white dresses, the first-years participate in various activities (including taking a class photo, writing reflective letters and signing the Honor Code) at Proclamation Night.

And the male first-year students? They are instructed to dress in coat and tie for a separate, mandatory ceremony (Investiture), which is identical to Proclamation Night in many ways.. except for the part where they chant "I am a Richmond man!"

It wasn't long before I started receiving emails about Ring Dance, a "celebration of the academic achievements of.. junior women," that bears a striking resemblance to a traditional European wedding.

The third-year women arrive at the renowned Jefferson Hotel in long, white gowns.

Each woman's name, hometown, major and escort's name (often her father) is announced as she is accompanied down a grandiose staircase, at the bottom of which she is presented with her class ring and--of course--a daisy.

After taking a class photo, the women spend the rest of the evening dancing with their tuxedo-laden dates, family members and friends before retiring to rooms they have booked at this lavish (read: expensive), five-star hotel.

At this point in time (only a few months into my college career), I couldn't help but begin to see manifestations of the coordinate college system all around me:

In December of 2010, Richmond College advertised free "blue books" for male students to pick up for the upcoming final exams period.

When I, a female student, contacted the College and questioned this practice, I was invited to pick up a couple of the leftovers.

In February of 2011, university administrators scheduled a male-only business program for the upcoming fall semester.

Many female students - such as Katherine Degnen, an economics major - denounced the proposal, illuminating the fact that such a program would "only enhance gender separations that already exist in the [Robins School of Business]."

In November of 2011, four students (two female and two male) were punished for stealing a banner hanging from the roof of a school building. Despite being charged with the same conduct violations, the female students were put on probation for the following five months and assigned 15 hours of community service while the male students were - in spite of their history of conduct violations - assigned only 10 hours.

And just this past July, I discovered from an email that only female Orientation Advisors are instructed to make decorations for the doors of their female orientees.

When I questioned this practice, I was informed that the male Orientation Advisors are not instructed to make such decorations because they report that male first-year students are "(for the most part) less interested in having them than the female students."

Many students find these University-sponsored traditions and practices problematic and exclusionary - and rightfully so.

The gender socialization that takes place in these examples marginalizes individuals in considerable ways.

Johanna Gehlbach (Class of 2012) notes that as a first-year, she felt uncomfortable wearing her white dress to Proclamation Night because she does not identify as a girl.

Two years later, she instead wore a suit to Ring Dance and was ostracized, having been told by the photographer to get out of - and in one instance, was almost physically removed from - the class photo.

Incidents like these arise in large part because the connections that the university often impels between (1) female students and (2) the color pink, delicate flowers (namely daisies), feminine language and the expectation of interest in/ability to craft door decorations construct an image of femininity that not all females conform to.

Additionally, the sex segregation that takes place within these institutional practices and events engenders many inequalities within the student body.

Though the circumstances are admittedly different from that of the mid-20th-century public schools in Topeka, Kansas, I believe Chief Justice Earl Warren's words in the decision of the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education still ring true, "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

We see this manifested clearly in that the allocation of resources (ex: "blue books"), distribution of punishment (ex: the banner-stealing incident) and educational opportunities (ex: the male-only business program) are not equal for both male and female students.

Some of these problems, such as the male-only business program, have since been resolved. But many others still remain.

And though some may argue that "blue books" and door decorations are trivial at best, the mere fact that such seemingly trite problems consistently arise is indicative of larger, structural inequalities that need addressing--namely, the existence of a coordinate-college system that institutionalizes sex-segregation and gender socialization.