Marmion Academy is going coed, but not all are on board with the change

After nearly a century as an all-boys institution, Marmion Academy in Aurora will welcome female students as early as the 2026-27 academic year, school leaders announced Tuesday.

“After a year of intense study, discernment and prayerful reflection, we’ve determined that it was the right time to make this change,” Abbot Joel Rippinger said. “Our values, rooted in the Catholic Benedictine tradition, will remain at the heart of our mission.”

The initial strategy will focus on keeping students in single-gender classrooms as freshmen and sophomores, and then moving to coed classrooms for their junior and senior years, Rippinger said.

The decision raised some concerns about the impact on Rosary High School, a private Catholic all-girls school in Aurora.

“Rosary is not closing, is not facing financial hardship and has no imminent plans to merge with any other institution,” the school’s board of directors said in a statement.

The high school partners with Marmion on programs like theater, and Rosary officials said they hope to continue collaborating. School leaders will explore options and opportunities amid “a potentially fundamental shift in Catholic high school education in the Fox Valley.”

Alumni from across the nation weighed in, some critical of the shift.

“I love my high school,” 2012 Marmion graduate Brian Wulff said. “Marmion did amazing things for me, it definitely helped shape who I am today.

“I think there are a lot of hard-to-quantify aspects of the all-male environment that make it truly unique. If we’re not an all-male school, what separates us from any other Catholic school in the area?” asked the West Point graduate who now lives in Georgia.

The Marmion Abbey chapter of monks voted Saturday to approve the planning and implementation of a coeducational model. That followed a school board recommendation in October.

The change will better prepare students for the diverse, interconnected world; meet the needs of families in the Fox Valley who want their daughters to have a transformative education; and position Marmion for long-term enrollment growth, administrators said.

Enrollment has been steady but the school “took a big hit” from the COVID-19 pandemic, Rippinger explained. The academy’s website lists enrollment as 423.

The coed model “gave us a much better sense of being able to increase the enrollment, … and open up new possibilities for what we know is a product people recognize as one with very high standards educationally,” Rippinger said.

Marmion will reach out to students, parents, faculty, and the greater school community in the coming months to figure out ways to make the change “successful and beneficial,” officials said.

“We are confident that this move is in the best interests of our students and the needs of our community,” Rippinger said.

Asked about Rosary High School going forward, Rippinger said the schools have had a “wonderful relationship.

“I certainly hope that cordial relationship and a willingness to share, as we can, will continue.”

A ‘brotherhood’

Studying at Marmion was a unique experience because of the “brotherhood” that existed among male students with no need to impress high school girls, alumnus Jacob Hutchison said.

“The linebacker was friends with the chess team; there was no social pressure to climb the social hierarchy,” explained Hutchison, who now lives in Texas and began a petition opposing the plan that received more than 800 supporters in a day.

“I’m upset about it,” said Luke Juriga, Class of 2015. “It’s still a great school but I think the best thing about it was the all-boys aspect of it. It was personally better for me to focus during class and in school. I felt it brought you closer together with the other guys.”

Rippinger acknowledged Marmion has “a revered history. It’s identified as single-sex. It’s a significant change and we realize that. We do think this is a point where we can change for the better and still maintain all the standards we have developed over the years.”

He pointed to pushback when the University of Notre Dame went coed in 1972.

“Some men thought this was the beginning of the end. And within a year or two, I think everyone agreed this one of the best things that ever happened,” he said.