Game. Set. Match.
It’s the academic battle of the sexes and Fairfield women are often victorious.
In the past few years at Fairfield, a higher percentage of women have graduated than men. Of the forty senior Phi Beta Kappa inductees for 2003, only 12 were men. Only one male junior was inducted.
“As a gender, research suggests that men mature at a slower rate than women,” said Phyllis Fitzpatrick, director of Fairfield’s office of management information.
Female students do better academically than male students, Fitzpatrick added.
In the class of 2002, 79.5 percent of females graduated, as opposed to 75.6 percent of males, according to Fitzpatrick. Graduation rates by gender in 2002 were closer than the rates of the class of 2001, where 78.6 percent of women graduated versus 68.4 percent of men.
Several professors have noticed that women do better in classes. Christopher Albrecht, philosophy professor at Fairfield, said that in the last four philosophy classes that he has taught at Fairfield, “Males averaged about 3.23 [GPA]. Females averaged about 3.39. Females are more likely than males to ask for help after class … I believe that there is a stronger study-ethic amongst women.”
Other professors disagreed. “I find no gender differences in my classes relative to performance or lack thereof,” said Communication professor Margaret Wills.
There are many reasons that male students do not graduate. A few are dismissed from the university for academic reasons, but there may be other reasons for dismissal, according to Fitzpatrick.
“Most students in academic trouble will withdraw voluntarily because they may not have been making the grades they expected to make,” she said.
Financial issues also play a major role in a failure to graduate. Even when students formally withdraw for personal reasons, financial concerns may be a part of the reason. For example, if a student loses a parent, they may not have sufficient income to attend college anymore.
There is also a fair number of transfers to other universities because of problems at Fairfield or because students who have been waitlisted at other universities are later accepted.
Phil Greiner, DNSc, RN, and associate professor of nursing at Fairfield said that circumstance plays a key factor in student performance.
“An excellent student can find herself matched with a roommate from hell, and the ensuing problems cause her to perform badly on all of her exams,” he said.
However, Fitzpatrick said that most students who leave Fairfield, whatever the reason may be, attend school elsewhere.
“I will bet that 80 percent of them are at school somewhere,” she said.
Overall, more female students are accepted at Fairfield in the first place. There are more female high school graduates than men, according to Fitzpatrick.
“There are more women in the college application pipeline,” she said. “All schools are fighting to keep the gender balance. Since there are fewer males, males have more choices.”
After school, women are also taking over several professions. “At a recent conference, I couldn’t help but notice how many of the young ‘hot shots’ in the field of professional and technical writing are females,” said David Sapp, english professor at Fairfield.
While statistics show that females do better in school than men, any male has the ability to excel.
In three of the past four years, ironically, the highest GPA has gone to a male student. The percentages do not hold true in all cases.
Some male students realize that female students are excelling. “I have to admit that girls always seem to be able to manage their time better between school work and extracurricular activities,” said Mark Valchuis, ’05.
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