FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PEC, Inc. Launches "Carrot or Stick" Campaign as Next Step in Opposing Trustees' Vote to Go Coed

PEC is offering R-MWC trustees a simple choice: choose the carrot (incentive package) or the stick (litigation on multiple fronts).

September 22, 2006 Lynchburg, VA—Preserve Educational Choice, Inc. announced today that they are launching a new campaign against the trustees of Randolph-Macon Woman's College. The campaign has a simple message to trustees: choose the carrot or the stick.

Preserve Educational Choice (PEC) was formed September 1, 2006, as a not-for-profit corporation to pursue all reasonable avenues to preserve the 115-year tradition of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (R-MWC) as an institution for women.

PEC launched its carrot or stick campaign this Friday on its website www.PreserveEducationalChoice.org. The "carrot" is an incentive package that PEC is offering trustees that includes financial and managerial help for the college. The "stick" is promised litigation against the college on multiple fronts.

The organization is having carrots delivered to Ginger Worden, the college's interim president and to trustees' homes with notes begging trustees to choose the carrot. Horses at R-MWC’s stable will be getting excess carrots from the president's office, as some of the last R-MWC carrots they will receive from the school. Trustees said they may sell R-MWC's riding facility to fund new male athletic facilities.

"The carrot or stick question is simple," said Ellen Reid Smith, President of the Board of PEC. "We are begging trustees to take our carrot so we don’t have to use our stick. However, to date, the trustees have refused all offers of carrots from alumnae, so the stick is looking like our course of action at this time. We’d certainly like to donate our legal defense war chest to the school rather than use it to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, but it’s up to the trustees."

Although PEC has acquired the pro bono support of several notable US law firms, PEC is amassing a legal defense fund with a target of $500,000 to pay for other expenses involved in filing lawsuits on behalf of multiple plaintiffs on multiple litigation fronts. At the same time PEC members are working to develop a new business plan for the school that will bring it back to prosperity as a woman’s college. PEC’s Carrot Plan is an incentive package that includes alumnae support, a business plan and a team of pro bono volunteers to help implement that business plan. A full list of Carrot Plan incentives is listed on the PEC website.

PEC also has another mission: to get the truth out. The website has a new feature named "Voice of the Honor Code" after the strong honor code that R-MWC students have lived by for years. "We take the Honor Code very seriously," said Smith. "The daily broadcast of the Voice of the Honor Code will attempt to correct the information that trustees have been giving students, alumnae and parents. There’s no shortage of facts that need to be clarified. Many of the trustee’s hired experts have misled this group of trustees and we hope we can help the trustees see that they have been working from very questionable data and bad advice for quite some time."

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Preserve Educational Choice was founded September 1, 2006 as a not-for-profit corporation to pursue all reasonable avenues to preserve the 115-year tradition of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. PEC’s board, committee chairwomen, volunteers and supporters consist of R-MWC alumnae from a wide variety of graduation classes and friends of the college. PEC is using this support to initiate and fund litigation on behalf of multiple plaintiffs against R-MWC trustees. For more information about Perserve Educational Choice, Inc., see the website at www.PreserveEducationalChoice.org

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