Research On The Core Competitiveness Of The "Seven Sisters" Colleges In The United States

The “Seven Sisters” College refers to the alliance of seven women's colleges and universities established in the 19 th century in the United States,which exclusively recruited female students in history.They insist on providing equality,excellence and high quality education for women,and cultivate numerous outstanding female elites and female leaders.They are known as the “seven golden flowers”of American women's colleges.Today,the “Seven Sisters” College became coeducational because of Vassar College in 1969,and Radcliffe College was merged with Harvard University in 1999,leaving only “Five Sisters ”college.Although they adopt different educational modes in the development of coeducation,they all create their own cultural characteristics according to the characteristics and advantages of the school and stand out in the forest of higher education in the United States.The "Seven Sisters" not only enrich the genre of American colleges,but also add a bright color to the culture of American higher education.Using the ideal type analysis method of Max Weber in sociology and based on the school-running mode,this paper summarizes the Five Sisters College,Vassar College and Radcliffe College as three types of women's colleges,which are traditional,integrated and dependent.Starting from the perspective of university cultural character,this paper analyzes the personality and characteristics of different types of women's colleges from the three levels of university material cultural character,university institutional cultural character and university spiritual cultural character,in order to provide useful reference for the development of women's colleges in the world and China.University is an academic organization with life-like characteristics,and has the cultural character similar to the individual.From the perspective of university cultural character,the core competitiveness of the Five Sisters College comes from its persistent feminist cultural character.Through the cultivation of material,system and spiritual cultural personality,the cultural symbol of women's college is manifested,and the unique culture and characteristics of women's college are formed.After Vassar College became a coed school,the cultural character of feminism formed in the period of women's college was gradually weakened,and the cultural character of elite liberal arts education became more and more distinct,realizing the successful transformation from a women's liberal arts college to a comprehensive liberal arts college.Today,Vassar plays an outstanding role at the forefront of undergraduate education as one of the nation's leading comprehensive liberal arts colleges.Radcliffe College was originally founded in 1879 as a “Harvard Affiliate” for women only.The core competitiveness of Radcliffe College during this period mainly came from its dependence on Harvard University's faculty and courses.During the period of Radcliffe College,through the independent identity construction and image building of the women's college,the feminist cultural character of the school was highlighted,and finally realized the leap from a small and unknown teaching institution to a famous Seven Sisters College.During the period of Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies,interdisciplinary studies dominated the cultural character,but attached and feminist cultural character were still retained.The cultural character of a university accumulates in the course of historical development and is the vivid expression of the cultural personality and characteristics of a university.Although the cultural characters of traditional,integrated and dependent women's colleges are different,they all have their own characteristics and are worth learning from.Blending of from the perspective of the social development and progress with a women's college and dependent women's college is undoubtedly the ideal mode of women's college in the future development,but the traditional women's college as a special kind of the existence of today's higher education system,continuously conveying the outstanding female talents for the society,its existence and its value and reasonable way,therefore is worthy of further in-depth study.