The board of Wilson College has decided to make the school co-ed but not everyone is pleased with the decision.

Jim Hook of Public Opinion Online reports.

Some alumnae still fighting to keep Wilson a college for women only

Some alumnae have not given up their fight to keep Wilson College a women’s college.

A group of alumnae hope their actions will block or delay the college’s decision to open the Chambersburg campus to male residential students in the fall of 2014. College-age men can commute this fall for the first time to classes at Wilson.

Alumnae are prepared to go to court to force the board of trustees to revisit its decision.

In the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, they have challenged the change to the school’s charter.

And through their attorney, they have sent the trustees a letter warning of a potential lawsuit.

“I hope the trustees reassess the direction we’re on and hit the pause button,” said Gretchen Van Ness, an attorney and former trustee who served on a commission that considered Wilson’s future.

The college meanwhile is moving ahead this summer with $3.2 million in renovations to a dormitory, the library, fitness center and field house. Alumnae claim that the college rushed to make changes without adequately considering the cost of implementing the changes and without evaluating whether Wilson would succeed with the changes. They say college President Barbara Mistik had already decided before convening the Commission on Shaping the Future of Wilson College that men should be admitted.

“The administration said over and over that there was no silver bullet, but it was clear that co-education was that silver bullet,” said Amy Boyce, who resigned from the college board of trustees after just a few months. “They are salivating with excitement that the guys are coming. I can predict how it’s going to be: The girls sitting next to them won’t want to speak up.”

The trustees voted 20-8 in January for the college to go co-ed, according to Boyce.