Vassar College
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| Vassar College | |
|---|---|
| Image:Vassar College Seal.png | |
| Motto: | None |
| Established | 1861 |
| Type: | Private coeducational |
| Endowment: | $842 million |
| President: | Catharine Bond Hill (2006-) |
| Undergraduates: | 2,475 |
| Location | Poughkeepsie, NY, USA |
| Campus: | Urban, suburban, park; 1,250 acres (4 km²) |
| Annual Fees: | $46,685 (2007–2008) |
| Colors: | Maroon[1] and Gray |
| Mascot: | Brewer |
| Website: | www.vassar.edu info.vassar.edu |
Vassar College is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college situated in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. Founded as a women's college in 1861, it was the first member of the Seven Sisters to become coeducational.[2] As of the August 2007 printing of "America's Best Colleges 2008", U.S. News & World Report ranks it #11 among liberal arts colleges in the United States.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Originally a women's college, Vassar is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. It was founded by its namesake, brewer Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the Hudson Valley, about 70 mi (100 km) north of New York City. The first person appointed to the Vassar faculty was the astronomer Maria Mitchell, in 1865. Vassar adopted coeducation in 1969 after declining an offer to merge with Yale University. However, immediately following World War II, Vassar accepted a very small number of male students on the G.I. Bill. Because Vassar's charter prohibited male matriculants, the graduates were given diplomas via the University of the State of New York. These were reissued under the Vassar title after the school formally became co-ed.[3]
Vassar's campus, also an arboretum[4], is 1,000 acres (4 km²) marked by period and modern buildings. The great majority of students live on campus. The renovated library has unusually large holdings for a college of its size. It includes special collections of Albert Einstein, Mary McCarthy, and Elizabeth Bishop.
In its early years, Vassar was associated with the social elite of the Protestant establishment. E. Digby Baltzell writes that "upper-class WASP families ... educated their children at ... colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Vassar, and Smith among other elite colleges."[5] Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Trustee.[6]
In recent freshman classes, minority students have comprised up to 27% of matriculants. International students from over 45 countries comprise 8% of the student body. In May of 2007, falling in with its commitment to diverse and equitable education, Vassar returned to a need-blind admissions policy wherein students are admitted by their academic and personal qualities, without regard to financial status.
Roughly 2,400 students attend Vassar. About 60% come from public high schools, and 40% come from private schools (both independent and religious). The overall female-to-male ratio is about 60:40, slightly above the standard for a liberal arts college. More than 85% of graduates pursue advanced study within five years of graduation. They are taught by more than 270 faculty members, virtually all of whom hold terminal degrees in their fields.
Vassar president Frances D. Fergusson served for two decades, longer than almost any other president of a comparable liberal arts college. She retired in the spring of 2006, and was replaced on July 1 by Catharine Bond Hill, former provost at Williams College.
The Miscellany News has been the weekly paper of the college since 1866, making it one of the oldest college weeklies in the United States. It is available for free most Thursdays when school is in session. All article content can be accessed at http://misc.vassar.edu.
[edit] Academics
Vassar confers the A.B. degree in more than 50 majors, including the Independent Major, in which a student may design a major, as well as various interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary fields of study. Students also participate in such programs as the Self-Instructional Language Program (SILP) which offers courses in Hindi, Irish/Gaelic, Korean, Portuguese, Swahili, Swedish, and Yiddish. Vassar has a flexible curriculum intended to promote breadth in studies. While each field of study has specific requirements for majors, the only universal requirements for graduation are proficiency in a foreign language, a quantitative course, and a freshman writing course. Students are also strongly encouraged to study abroad, which they typically do during one or two semesters of their junior year. Students (usually juniors) may apply for a year or a semester away either in the U.S. or abroad. Vassar sponsors programs in China, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Morocco and Spain; students may also join preapproved programs offered by other colleges. Students may also apply for approved programs at various U.S. institutions, including the historically Black colleges and members of the Twelve College Exchange.
All classes are taught by members of the faculty, and there are almost no graduate students and no teachers' assistants. The most popular majors are English, political science, psychology, and economics. Vassar also offers a variety of correlate sequences, or minors, for intensive study in many disciplines.
[edit] Admissions rankings
Vassar was named the 1999 Time Magazine/Princeton Review “College of the Year”; the annual US News & World Report college rankings lists Vassar as one of the top 15 colleges in the United States; and the 2002 Princeton Review rankings called Vassar’s students the happiest in the country and the campus one of the two most beautiful.Barron's has placed Vassar in its "most competitive" category for admissions. It is ranked #11 among liberal arts colleges by U.S.News & World Report, tied with Claremont McKenna College, Grinnell College, and Wesleyan University. For its class of 2011, it had an acceptance rate of 28.6%. Sixty-nine percent of the enrolled class of 2011 graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class. Their average SAT scores were 704 critical reading, 682 mathematics, and 697 writing. ([1]) The Princeton Review gave Vassar a selectivity rating of 97 out of 100 in its 2006 edition. The most recent median SAT score for accepted students is 2110 and 1432 (counting only math and critical reading scores).[citation needed]The average high school GPA of the student body is 3.7 on a 4.0 scale, with over three quarters of the students ranked in the top 10% of their classes.
[edit] Libraries
Vassar is home to one of the largest undergraduate library collections in the world. When Vassar opened in 1865, the library was a mere single room in Main with a collection of only three thousand books. In 1893 Frederick Thompson, a Vassar trustee, gave the college an extension to Main Building that served as a library until the new Thompson building was completed in 1905. In 1937 funds derived from his bequest built an additional Art Library to the south which leads to Taylor Hall. That part of the structure is known as the Van Ingen Art Library, in memory of Henry Van Ingen, professor of art at Vassar from 1865 to 1898.
In the West Wing is the Cornaro Stained-Glass Window commissioned for the library from Louis Comfort Tiffany and installed in 1906. The image shows Lady Elena Lucretia Cornaro-Piscopia, a young Venetian who had previously been denied the Doctor of Theology degree as a woman, receiving her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua. She is thought to be the first woman to earn this degree in European history.
In 2001, the Martha Rivers and E. Bronson Ingram Library was built. A principal feature of this new addition is the Catherine Pelton Durrell Archives and Special Collections which houses the Francis Fitz Randolph Rare Book Room as well as exhibit, storage, teaching and reading areas. Ingram Library also includes Reserve Services, studies for faculty members, the periodical collections, the Class of 1951 Reading Room, the library classroom and staff offices. A major renovation to Thompson Library was also completed in 2001.
The library collection today - which actually encompasses seven total libraries at Vassar - contains over 1.587 million volumes and 7,500 serial, periodical and newspaper titles, as well as an extensive collection of microfilm and microfiche. [7]
[edit] Presidents of Vassar College
| Name | Dates |
|---|---|
| Milo P. Jewett | 1861–1864 |
| John H. Raymond | 1864–1878 |
| Samuel L. Caldwell | 1878–1885 |
| James Monroe Taylor | 1886–1914 |
| Henry Noble MacCracken | 1915–1946 |
| Sarah Gibson Blanding | 1946–1964 |
| Alan Simpson | 1964–1977 |
| Virginia B. Smith | 1977–1986 |
| Frances D. Fergusson | 1986–2006 |
| Catharine "Cappy" Bond Hill | 2006— |
[edit] Athletics
Vassar competes in Division III of the NCAA, as a member of the Liberty League.
Vassar College currently offers the following varsity athletics: - Men's and Women's Basketball - Baseball (Gender Neutral) - Cross-Country - Fencing - Field Hockey (Women only) - Golf (Women only) - Lacrosse - Rowing - Soccer - Squash - Swimming/Diving - Tennis - Volleyball - Track and Field
Other club sports - Rugby (Men's and Women's) - Ultimate Frisbee (Men's and Women's) - Equestrian Team - Cycling Team (Competes in ECCC)
Basketball plays in the new Athletics and Fitness Center. Volleyball plays in Kenyon Hall, reopened in 2006. Soccer, Baseball, Field Hockey and Lacrosse all play at the Prentiss Fields by the Town Houses, which will be completely renovated starting in November 2006 to include new fields for all teams and a new track.
On April 28th and 29th, the Vassar Cycling Team hosted the Eastern Conference Championships in Collegiate Cycling in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, NY. The competition included a 98 mile road race over the Gunks in New Paltz as well as a Criterium in Poughkeepsie just blocks from the school's campus.
[edit] Theatre
The oldest theater group on campus is Philaletheis, which was founded in 1865 as a literary society. It has now become a completely student run theater group. Others include Unbound, Woodshed, and the Shakespeare troupe. Performances are done all over campus including in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater which is an all student run black box theater. The college also hosts the Powerhouse Summer Theater workshop series.
[edit] Architecture
The Vassar campus has several buildings of architectural interest. Main Building, sometimes known as Old Main, formerly housed the entire college, including classrooms, dormitories, museum, library, and dining halls. The building was designed by Smithsonian architect James Renwick Jr. and was completed in 1865. It was preceded on campus by the original observatory. Both buildings are National Historic Landmarks.
Many beautiful old brick buildings are scattered throughout the campus, but there are also several modern and contemporary structures of architectural interest. Ferry House, a student cooperative, was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1951. Noyes House was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. A good example of an attempt to use passive solar design can be seen in the Mudd Chemistry Building by Perry Dean Rogers. More recently, New Haven architect César Pelli was asked to design the Lehman Loeb Art Center, which was completed in the early 1990s. In 2003, Pelli also worked on the renovation of Main Building Lobby and the conversion of the Avery Hall theater into the $25 million Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, which preserved the original 1860s facade but was an entirely new structure.
[edit] Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
The art collection at Vassar dates to the founding of the College, when Matthew Vassar provided an extensive collection of Hudson River School paintings to be displayed in the Main Building. Referred to as the Magoon Collection, it continues to be one of the best in the nation for Hudson River School paintings. The Frances Lehman Loeb Gallery displays a selection of Vassar's 17,000 articles of art in the building designed by Cesar Pelli (see Architecture). Today, the gallery's collection displays art from the ancient world up through contemporary works. The collection includes work by European masters such Brueghel, Doré, Picasso, Balthus, Bacon, Vuillard, Cézanne, Braque and Bonnard, as well as examples from leading twentieth-century American painters Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keefe, Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn. The Loeb's works on paper represent a major collection in the United States, with prints by Rembrandt (including important impressions of the "Hundred Guilder Print" and the "Three Trees") and Durer as well as photographs by Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, and others.
[edit] After Vassar
75-80% of Vassar graduates plan to pursue advanced study within 5 years of graduation.[citation needed]
[edit] Notable Faculty and Alumni
[edit] References
- Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).
[edit] Notes
- ^ Vassar Myths & Legends - Vassar College Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
- ^ Vassar Firsts. Retrieved on 2006-05-19.
- ^ Vassar's Vets: Forgotten Grads. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ Frances Daley Fergusson: Creating a campus that inspires. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (1994). Judgment and Sensibility: Religion and Stratification. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1-56000-048-1. , p. 8
- ^ Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Local Trustee. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ Vassar College Libraries. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- The Vassar College Encyclopedia
- Vassar College Infosite (news and events)
- Campus tour
- The college catalogue, with a complete listing of all available concentrations
- Vassar innovators
- History of Vassar College
- Vassar in popular culture
- The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Vassar College | |
|---|---|
| Athletics | Vassar College Soccer |
| Campus | Main Building • Vassar College Observatory • Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center |
| Student Life | The Miscellany News |
| Other | List of Vassar College people |
Seven Sister Colleges |
|---|
| Barnard • Bryn Mawr • Mount Holyoke • Radcliffe (defunct) • Smith • Vassar (coeducational) • Wellesley |
Liberty League | |
|---|---|
| Full members | Clarkson • Hamilton • Hobart • RPI • Rochester • St. Lawrence • Skidmore • Union • Vassar • William Smith |
| Associate members | U.S. Merchant Marine (football) • Susquehanna (football) • WPI (football) |
es:Universidad de Vassar fr:Vassar College ja:ヴァッサー大学 pt:Vassar College
Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since December 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements since January 2008 | Liberty League | Dutchess County, New York | Poughkeepsie, New York | Educational institutions established in 1861 | Liberal arts colleges | Universities and colleges in New York | Vassar College | Former women's universities and colleges
