You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Last year, Deep Springs College admitted women for the first time. Last week, it announced a woman as its next president.
The tiny college in the California desert has named Susan Darlington as its next president. Darlington, who is currently dean of the School of Critical Social Inquiry at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, will begin as president at Deep Springs in August 2020.
Deep Springs, founded in 1917, voted to admit women in 2011. Some alumni sued to stop the move, arguing the college’s founder, L. L. Nunn, didn’t want to educate women. Legal challenges were decided in the college’s favor six years later. That decision came too late in the year to affect the admissions process, so Deep Springs admitted women for the first time in 2018.
“I know there are people that are concerned about how much the college may change,” said Darlington, who is also a professor of anthropology and Asian studies at Hampshire. “But I see it really grounded in L. L. Nunn’s principles, and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
Deep Springs stresses five fundamental elements: three pillars of academics, labor and self-governance, plus two ground rules of isolation from the broader social world and abstinence from illegal drugs and alcohol.
“The college is so unique,” Darlington said. “When I got the opportunity to go there and actually meet the students and see how much the way they work impacts these students, I was just blown away.”
Deep Springs was not specifically looking for a woman to be its next president, said its current president, David Neidorf.
“It was not a criteria for the job -- she’s just the best person,” Neidorf said. “It’s a great thing for the future of the college and the spirit of the college as it enters a coed second century.”
About 300 prospective students apply annually for about 15 slots at Deep Springs, which offers two years of instruction for a total student body size of roughly 30. This year, the college is 54 percent female, said Neidorf. Plans call for it to be evenly split between men and women next year before convening a committee to decide whether it wants to consider gender at all in admissions.
