But Sutherland doesn’t care about the shortage of men on campus.

“That’s not why I came to college,” Sutherland says. “I came here to get an education. I don’t think that’s the reason more women are going to college.”

Twenty-five years ago, Kent State had about 1,000 more men than women. No one is sure what happened to turn the tide.

President Carol Cartwright says women have been presented an opportunity they didn’t have in the past.

“As recently as when I was in college — and that is awhile ago now, but it is not ancient history — it was not at all considered to be the thing to do for women,” Cartwright says. “Most women will say that they kind of had to fight for the opportunity within their families to go to college. But there has been more deliberate encouragement for women in the past few decades.”

Paul Deutsch, director of admissions at Kent State, says more career opportunities are available for women.

“I think what happened is as career fields have opened up for women, which were traditionally male types of careers, more and more women are going to college,” Deutsch says.“Advertising, journalism and business are fields that we’ve seen significant increases in the number of females,” he adds.

Advertising and journalism began attracting many more women in the mid-1970s.

“If you listen to any of the women who have been involved in journalism and mass communication fields for the last 30 years, back then it was unusual to find a woman in the newsroom,” says Anne Reid, an academic adviser and coordinator in the College of Fine and Professional Arts. “If there was, it was one. Editors would say, ‘No, we’re not hiring you because we already have a woman.’ I think people now are not aware of how enormously drastic the change is.”

How drastic is it? Last fall, twice as many women as men enrolled in the pre-journalism, news and advertising sequences. The College of Fine and Professional Arts, which includes journalism and architecture, had 277 more men than women in fall 1975. Last fall, women outnumbered men by 2,027.

Reid says she thought the architecture program had gained momentum among female students as well, but it doesn’t appear to be as close. Since the architecture program absorbed the interior design program, the numbers do appear closer with 272 males to 151 females. But the architecture major alone has 271 males and 100 females.

The number of women has also increased in the College of Business Administration, a drastic change from a quarter century ago.

“I myself worked on an undergraduate business education in the ’70s, and there were not many women in my class,” says Elizabeth Sinclair-Colando, assistant dean in the College of Business of Administration. “There were some, but still, women did not outnumber men. Now more women are interested in business, and in general, interest in business is increasing.”

Eugene Walters, a sophomore fashion merchandising and design major, is one of about 25 men in his major.