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Image of University of Mary Washington as women's college is weakness, says marketing report Date published: 8/8/2004 By KELLY HANNON The University of Mary Washington's image as a "private, all girls school" is its top weakness, according to a marketing firm hired to help with the university's public promotion. The 26-page report, authored by marketing firm Barton, Matheson, Willse and Worthington of Baltimore, is based on interviews conducted in February with groups of students, faculty and staff. The Free Lance-Star obtained the document--dated March 31 and distributed to senior staff at the university--through a Freedom of Information Act request. BMW&W was hired to help the school promote its new university status, which went into effect on July 1. The firm has helped many colleges and universities, including Harvard, Duke and Yale, polish their images. Findings from the interviews identify the school's strengths and weakness. Two of the top three weaknesses involve the school's name. The No. 1 weakness--which means it was cited most frequently by interviewees--was the university's image as a private, all-girls school. The second weakness was low minority enrollment, and the third was that the "feminine-sounding name hurts in developing interest." "Our biggest impediment is 'Mary,'" said one anonymous faculty member quoted in the report. The university was a women's college until 1970, when it began admitting men. In 2003, approximately 66 percent of the school's nearly 4,000 undergraduates were women, and 33 percent were men. Top strengths mentioned in the report were the university's strong academic reputation, close proximity to Washington, safe campus, small class size and high-caliber students. It's common for colleges and universities to hire marketing firms to get a sense of their status in comparison with other schools, said Ron Singleton, senior vice president for university relations. "It helps us get a handle on how we're viewed," Singleton said. The report, which was financed by the private Mary Washington Foundation, was not given to the university's board of visitors, he said. "It's an internal document," Singleton said. The public perception's of the school as a women's college is, to some, an admissions challenge for recruiting both men and women. During a Nov. 18, 2003, meeting of the 21-member College Image and University Name Committee, the school's vice president for enrollment said the school's image as a women's college turns off prospective students--male and female.
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