co-ed is wrong
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Although she doesn't mention it in this letter, another concern Miss Sill may have had was the fear of competition. If Beloit became coeducational they would compete with Rockford Female Seminary for women in the surrounding areas of Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. Perhaps that competition would then force the seminary to open its doors to men to survive financially.
As time progressed the possibility of coeducation became harder and harder for the faculty and administration to ignore. In June of 1893 the Faculty decided that an Art Department was needed because it "[would] surely...afford the College an opportunity to extend its educational advantage to women which is nothing more than just since the College is so largely indebted to women for its buildings and endowments..." Later that year the Faculty decided "in regard to the admission of young women to the privileges of undergraduate instruction in Beloit college" that they could make no definite decision and so they left the matter entirely up to the Board of Trustees. By the Fall of 1893 coeducation was brought up continually in the Faculty Minutes and Reports of the Faculty to the Trustees...