“There is a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of questions,” said Lewis, a Midlothian resident who is secretary-treasurer for Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia.

“I wish you could freeze time, but you can’t. We can’t. We have to grow. We have to evolve,” she said before the Facebook session. “I love Mary Baldwin University. I believe what they need is my support and if this is the path they need to take, then I support it.”

But others were quick to protest on the school’s Facebook page.

“I’m troubled by the fact that, in a world where women fight tooth and nail to carve out a place for themselves as equals, Mary Baldwin women will now have to create and preserve their own space at a college that has always been just for them,” wrote Logan Zeigler of Harrisonburg.

Others saw wordsmithing in the university’s attempt to have it both ways.

“Call it whatever you want, but it is no longer a single-sex residential college,” wrote Karen McVey of Nashville, Tenn.