Mills Officials Will Look at Ways to Avoid Going Co-Ed : Education: Campus hierarchy says it might reconsider plan to admit men if college’s financial stability can be assured.

Faced with a continuing student strike, Mills College officials said Thursday they will study proposals next week from alumnae and staff to prevent the women’s school from going co-ed, and ultimately may reconsider the decision to admit men.

The executive committee of Mills’ trustees announced that they would look at a plan by alumnae to add $10 million over three years to the college’s current $72 million endowment and to increase the annual donations for operating funds from $450,000 to $750,000 over the next five years. If those goals are not met, then the school could admit undergraduate men, the alumnae said.

The trustees also want to hear next week from faculty, staff and students about ways to cut costs, increase teaching loads and recruit more students.

If those proposals “taken together show promise of the college achieving finanical stability,” the executive committee may recommend that the full board of trustees reconsider the co-education decision, according to a formal statement released by Mills. The board is scheduled to meet next Thursday. .

But the likelihood of a reversal is still thought to be slim. “I want us to be enthusiastic but cautious,” Mills President Mary Metz told a gathering of students. “We haven’t done it yet.” Metz said she reluctantly voted to go co-ed because of the school’s financial problems.

Meanwhile, student leaders said the announcement of possible reconsideration was not enough for them to call off their blockade of offices that has crippled the college for the past week, since the decision to admit undergraduate men in 1991 was revealed. And plans for finals exams and the May 20 graduation remain confused.

Vickie Bates, a spokeswoman for the Mills administration, said “a lot of conditions need to be met before the board reconsiders, and the students are really aware of that.”

Leaders of the 138-year-old school clearly were not prepared for the passionate opposition from students and alumnae to the decision to go co-ed. But senior Karri Donahue said the hint of possible reconsideration only firmed up resolve to continue the blockades. “That gives us the strength to keep going,” she said.

Linda Kay, executive director of the alumnae group, said Wednesday that volunteers are starting a massive phone effort this week to reach about 6,000 of the 14,000 surviving Mills graduates for donation pledges as proof that $10 million can be raised.

One big problem with that alumnae plan, however, is it would stop the current campaign to raise $7 million to restore 119-year-old Mills Hall, the former administrative headquarters that was damaged in last October’s earthquake.

The faculty is scheduled to meet Monday and may develop its own plan to keep Mills a women-only school. That may involve a faculty offer to cut the number of teaching jobs through attrition and offers to teach extra courses without pay, Bates said. The faculty, which includes men, voted 42 to 21 two weeks ago in favor of keeping men out of the undergraduate student population. (Mills has men in its graduate programs.)

The final exam period is now chaotic, with some professors canceling the tests, some requiring them and some switching to take-home exams. Students pledge to hold their own informal graduation ceremony even though officials say it will be very difficult to determine which seniors are entitled to receive diplomas. Academic records remain in offices behind the blockades.

Mills students bitterly complain that the arrival of male undergraduates will destroy a nurturing learning atmosphere free of many social pressures. The protesters stress that research shows that women students often defer to men in the classroom. Their sense of betrayal is heightened by the fact that Mills officials long had sung the praises of single-sex education.

Beyette reported from Oakland and Gordon from Los Angeles.