The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College a private institution to the college s governing committee We recommend that Grove College preserve its century old tradition of all female education rather t

The recommendation given by the president and administrative faculties of Grove College to the college's governing committee states that, all-female education of the college must be preserved and no male students must be admitted. It bases its conclusion on the premise that students and alumnae are in opposition to co-education. It also goes further stating advantages that would result out of continuing all-female education. At first sight, this argument seems coherent and convincing. On scrutiny, it is found to be rife with holes and assumptions. Only after a careful analysis, can a decision be made about the future implications of this recommendation.

Firstly, the author states that majority of faculty members voted for coeducation as they thought it would increase student-intake. However, the current student intake is not mentioned and what caused the faculty members to think so must be mentioned. Co-education succeeding in other institutions does not necessarily mean success will result in Grove College too. Above all, the author just mentions that a majority of faculty members voted. However, the term 'majority' is vague and arouses suspicion. More details regarding the total strength of faculties and those who preferred to vote and their reasons for their votes etc.. must be gathered and summarized in order to get a clear picture about the views of the faculty members and their relevance to the issue at hand.

Secondly, the author commits 'ad-populum' fallacy in two instances. He states that 80 percent of the students responding to the survey were in favor of all-female education. On the contrary, very few students could have reported for the survey. For example, in a college of 1000 students, if just 100 students turn up for survey, a meager number of 80 students(80 percent) voting in favor of all-female education will not reflect the opinions of the majority of 1000 students. The case in doubt is that, the status or opinion of the remaining 900 students are unknown in this sample scenario and this result from a small sample cannot be extrapolated. The author commits the same flaw when mentioning 'half' of the alumnae who answered a separate survey. He has to answer whether both surveys were identical and comparable. Moreover, the author has to come out of his 'biased sample' fallacy by quoting proper numbers as and where required.

Thirdly, the author commits the fallacy of 'quantum leap' of faith when he predicts advantages of continuing all-female education system. The author has to elaborate on how will all-female education improve the morale of the students. For instance, the case might be that, since males are not allowed to study in the institution, it can be of a problem to the female students when they venture out to the real world taking up jobs. Hence, the implication of 'morale' must be clarified. Also, the author makes a 'correlation-causation' fallacy, when he states that alumni will continue funding if all-female education is continued. Consequently, the question of how does all-female education convince alumnae to grant funds must be answered. This also throws in a question of whether the college will be unable to manage the college operations if alumnae were to stop their funding. The answers to these questions are of prime necessity in determining the expectant advantages of going ahead with the same system.

Thus the author has presented an argument which rises lots of questions like those pertaining to the following: definition of the term 'majority'; the current intake of Grove College; details of the surveys conducted; relevance and compatibility of the surveys presented to the students and the alumnae; ways in which morale will be boosted through all-female education; reason for alumnae's funds related with the current system. This argument will be free of errors if the author takes time to put up all the required evidence and avoid vague terminologies like 'majority', '80 percent' etc... Moreover, the author must establish the conformity of the predicted advantages through proper reasoning without taking a giant leap of faith. Unless these questions are answered properly, the recommendation cannot be taken further for the next stages of implementation.