Vassar College ( VASS-ər ) is a secret broad arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting initiation of higher education for women in the United States, close following Elmira College. It became co-ed in 1969 and now has a gender proportion at the national average. The college is one of the historic Seven Sisters, the first elite women ‘s colleges in the U.S., and has a historic relationship with Yale University, which suggested a amalgamation before they both became co-ed institutions. About 2,450 students attend the college. As of 2021, its adoption rate is 19 %. [ 8 ] The college offers B.A. degrees in more than 50 majors and features a flexible course of study designed to promote a breadth of studies. scholar groups at the college include theater and drollery organizations, a cappella groups, club sports teams, volunteer and service groups, and a circus company. Vassar College ‘s varsity sports teams, known as the Brewers, play in the NCAA ‘s Division III as members of the Liberty League.
Reading: Vassar College – Wikipedia
The Vassar campus comprises over 1,000 acres ( 400 hour angle ) and more than 100 buildings, including two National Historic Landmarks and an extra National Historic Place. A intend arboretum, the campus features more than 200 species of trees, a native establish conserve, and a 530-acre ( 210 hour angle ) ecological preserve .
history [edit ]
Vassar was founded as a women ‘s school under the name Vassar Female College in 1861. [ 1 ] Its first president was Milo P. Jewett, who had previously been foremost president of another women ‘s school, Judson College ; [ 9 ] he led a staff of ten-spot professors and twenty-one instructors. [ 10 ] But after only a class, its founder, Matthew Vassar, had the parole Female baseball swing from the name, prompting some residents of the township of Poughkeepsie, New York, to quip that its founder believed it might one day admit male students. The college became co-ed in 1969. [ 1 ] Vassar was the second of the Seven Sisters colleges, higher department of education schools that were once strictly for women, and historically sister institutions to the Ivy League. It was chartered by its namesake, brewer Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the Hudson Valley, about 70 miles ( 110 kilometer ) union of New York City. The beginning person appointed to the Vassar staff was the astronomer Maria Mitchell, in 1865. Vassar adopted coeducation in 1969. however, immediately following World War II, Vassar accepted a very humble 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 deed after the educate formally became co-educational. [ 11 ] The formal decision to become co-ed came after its trustees declined an offer to merge with Yale University, its sibling mental hospital, in the wave of mergers between the historically all-male colleges of the Ivy League and their seven-spot Sisters counterparts. [ 12 ]
In its early years, Vassar was associated with the sociable elect of the Protestant constitution. E. Digby Baltzell writes that “ upper-class WASP families educated their children at colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Vassar. ” [ 14 ] A choice and elite few of Vassar ‘s students were allowed submission into the school ‘s privy company Delta Sigma Rho, started in 1922. [ 15 ] Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a trustee. [ 16 ] approximately 2,450 students attend Vassar, and 98 % alive on campus. [ 5 ] About 60 % come from public high gear schools, and 40 % come from secret schools ( both autonomous and religious ). [ 5 ] Vassar is presently 56 % women and 44 % men, at national median for national liberal arts colleges. [ 17 ] Students are taught by more than 336 staff members, about all holding the doctor’s degree degree or its equivalent. [ 5 ] The student-faculty ratio is 8:1, average class size, 17. [ 5 ] In recent freshman classes, students of tinge constituted 32–38 % of matriculants. [ 5 ] International students from over 60 countries make up 8-10 % of the student consistency. [ 5 ] In May 2007, in keeping with its commitment to diverse and equitable education, Vassar returned to a need-blind admissions policy wherein students are admitted by their academician and personal qualities, without regard to fiscal condition. Vassar president of the united states Frances D. Fergusson served for two decades. She retired in the spring of 2006, and was succeeded by Catharine Bond Hill, former provost at Williams College, who served for 10 years until she departed in 2016. Hill was replaced by Elizabeth Howe Bradley in 2017. [ 18 ] The college was listed as a census-designated place ( Vassar College CDP ) in 2019. [ 19 ]
Presidents [edit ]
campus [edit ]
architecture [edit ]
The Vassar College Observatory is one of two National Historic Landmarks on the college ‘s campus, along with Main Building. Vassar ‘s campus, besides an arboretum, [ 20 ] is 1,000 acres ( 400 hour angle ) and has more than 100 buildings, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International, with respective buildings of architectural sake. At the center of campus stands Main Building, one of the best examples of Second Empire computer architecture in the United States. When it was opened, Main Building was the largest build in the U.S. in terms of floor space. It once housed the entire college, including classrooms, dormitories, museum, library, and dining halls. [ 13 ] [ 21 ] The build 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. Rombout House was purchased by the college in 1915 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. [ 22 ] [ 23 ] many master brick buildings are scattered throughout the campus, but there are besides respective mod 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. 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 besides worked on the renovation of Main Building Lobby and the conversion of the Avery Hall dramaturgy into the $ 25 million Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, which preserved the original 1860s facade but was an entirely modern structure .
Libraries [edit ]
Vassar ‘s Thompson Library Vassar is home to one of the largest undergraduate library collections in the U.S. The library solicitation today – which actually encompasses eight libraries at Vassar – contains about 1 million volumes and 7,500 consecutive, periodic and newspaper titles, a well as an extensive collection of microfilm and microfiche, with special collections of Ellen Swallow Richards, Albert Einstein, Mary McCarthy, and Elizabeth Bishop. [ 24 ] [ 25 ] Vassar has been a Federal Depository library for selected U.S. Government documents since 1943 and presently receives approximately 25 % of the titles available through the Federal Depository Program. [ 26 ] Since 1988, Vassar has been a New York State Reference Center, separate of the New York Depository Program. The library besides selectively purchases United Nations documents. A major renovation to Thompson Library was completed in 2001. The inside and outside of the Van Ingen Art Library was renovated from June 2008 – May 2009 in an effort to restore its original design and appearance. This was the library ‘s first major renovation since its construction in 1937. [ 27 ]
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center [edit ]
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Vassar College was the foremost college in the United States to be founded with a all-out museum as separate of its original plan. Matthew Vassar was known for declaring that “ art should stand boldly forth as an educational coerce ”. The artwork collection at Vassar dates to the establish of the college, when 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. One of the largest U.S. college or university art museums, the Frances Lehman Loeb Gallery displays a survival of Vassar ‘s 18,000 articles of art in the building designed by Cesar Pelli. today, the gallery ‘s collection displays art from the ancient global up through contemporaneous works. The solicitation includes work by european masters such as Brueghel, Gustave Doré, Picasso, Balthus, Bacon, Vuillard, Cézanne, Braque and Bonnard, deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as examples from leading twentieth-century american english painters Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn. The Loeb ‘s works on paper typify a major collection in the United States, with prints by Rembrandt ( including authoritative impressions of the Hundred Guilder Print and the Three Trees ) and Dürer adenine well as photograph by Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, and others. Students at the college can act as liaisons between the art concentrate and the wide-eyed college community through work on the Student Committee of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, to which incoming freshmen can apply. In November 2016, the gallery opened the Hoene Hoy Photography veranda on the second floor, named after Anne Hoene Hoy from the class of 1963. [ 28 ]
capital improvements [edit ]
Bridge for Laboratory Sciences outside west nearing completion, March 2016 In 2011, Vassar embarked on a $ 120 million project to improve skill facilities at the college, centering on the construction of a newly $ 90 million Bridge for Laboratory Sciences. [ 29 ] The project included renovations of Olmsted Hall of Biological Sciences, New England Building and Sanders Physics Building arsenic well as the construction of a new Integrated Science Center, a bridge construction that connected to Olmsted Hall and crossed over the Fonteyn Kill. It was intended both to modernize and to support a collaborative and cross-disciplinary science community. The bridge build was completed in 2016. Davison, one of Vassar ‘s nine residence houses, was renovated during the 2008–2009 educate year. During the year of renovation, Davison ‘s residents were absorbed into the college ‘s remaining residence houses. [ 30 ] This was the irregular dormitory to be renovated as part of the school ‘s master plan to renovate all dorms, following Jewett a few years early. Lathrop was scheduled to be closed and renovated during the 2010–2011 school year, but arrant renovation was postponed due to the economic downturn, with a number of improvements phased-in alternatively. Improvements were besides made to Josselyn in 2011. [ 31 ]
Academics [edit ]
Rockefeller Hall, built in 1897, is home to the departments of Political Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics. Vassar confers a bachelor of Arts ( BA ) degree in more than 50 majors, including the independent major, in which a student may design a run of cogitation, equally well as versatile interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary fields of study. Students besides participate in such programs as the self-instructional terminology program ( SILP ) which offers courses in Hindi, Irish/Gaelic, Korean, Portuguese, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, and Yiddish. Vassar has a elastic course of study intended to promote width in studies. While each field of study has specific requirements for majors, the only universal requirements for gradation are proficiency in a extraneous language, a quantitative naturally, and a newcomer write course. Students are besides encouraged to study afield, which they typically do during one or two semesters of their junior year. Students ( normally 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, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Morocco, Spain, and Russia ; students may besides join pre-approved programs offered by other colleges. Students may besides apply for approve programs at versatile 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 no graduate students or teachers ‘ assistants. The most popular majors, in terms of absolute numbers, are english, political science, psychology, economics and biota. [ 17 ] Vassar besides offers a assortment of correlate sequences, or minors, for intensive learn in many disciplines .
Admissions [edit ]
| 2021[32] | 2020[33] | 2019[34] | 2018[35] | 2017[36] | 2016[37] | 2015[38] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applicants | 10,884 | 8,663 | 8,961 | 8,312 | 7,746 | 7,284 | 7,556 |
| Admits | 2,068 | 2,100 | 2,127 | 2,043 | 1,842 | 1,964 | 1,947 |
| Admit rate | 19% | 24% | 23.7 % | 24.6% | 23.8% | 27.0% | 25.8% |
| Enrolled | 679 | 594 | 691 | 685 | 625 | 659 | 667 |
| SAT mid-50% range* | 1380-1500 | 1370-1510 | 1370-1510 | 1330-1500 | 1330-1490 | ||
| ACT mid-50% range | 31-34 | 31-33 | 31-33 | 30-33 | 30-33 | ||
| * SAT out of 1600 |
For the class of 2025 ( enrolling fall 2021 ), Vassar received 10,884 applications, a 25 % increase over the former year, and accepted 2,068 ( 19 % ). [ 39 ] For the class of 2023 ( enrolling fall 2019 ), Vassar received 8,961 applications and accepted 2,127 ( 23.7 % ), with 691 enrolling. [ 34 ] The middle 50 % range of SAT scores for enrolling freshmen was 680-750 for evidence-based reading and write, 690-780 for mathematics, and 1380-1500 for the complex. [ 34 ] The in-between 50 % ACT score range was 28-33 for mathematics, 32-34 for English, and 31-34 for the composite. [ 34 ] Students of color ( including non-citizens ) made up 45.5 % of the incoming class ; [ 4 ] international students were 8.8 % of enrolling freshmen. [ 4 ]
Rankings [edit ]
The 2022 version of U.S. News & World Report’ s “ Best Colleges ” ranked Vassar as tied for the 22nd best broad arts college in the U.S. out of 223 rated. In previous years the college was ranked by U.S. News & World Report deoxyadenosine monophosphate high gear as one-tenth. besides in 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranked Vassar third gear for “ Best Colleges for Veterans ”, 30th for “ Best value ”, tied at 32nd for “ top Performers on Social Mobility ”, and tied for 36th in “ Best undergraduate teach ”. [ 44 ] It besides ranked Vassar tied for moment among top big arts colleges for economic diverseness as measured by low-income students receiving union Pell Grants. [ 45 ] In its 2021 version, Washington Monthly ranked Vassar 11th among 215 free arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the populace good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. [ 46 ] In its 2020 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar first for “ Best Financial Aid ” of all colleges and universities in the United States. [ 47 ] In its 2018 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar irregular best for fiscal aid and 41st best for “ best rate ”. [ 48 ] In 2019, Forbes rated Vassar 27th among free arts colleges and 61st overall in its America ‘s Top Colleges rank, which includes 650 military academies, home universities, and broad arts colleges. [ 49 ] Kiplinger’s Personal Finance places Vassar 11th in its 2019 rate of the 149 best respect liberal arts colleges in the United States. [ 50 ] Money magazine ranked Vassar 145th in the state out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 “ Best Colleges for Your money ” edition. [ 51 ] In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Vassar president emeritus Catharine Bond Hill argued that rankings “ will constantly be limited in what they can tell consumers. part of higher education ‘s character about the rankings should be to remind students and their families that these are only one while of information that they should take into bill in deciding where to go to college. Intangibles will and should play a function in these decisions, but that does n’t mean we should n’t besides look at the tangibles ”. [ 52 ]
Post-graduation outcomes [edit ]
Over half of Vassar graduates pursue advanced cogitation within five years of graduation, including one-fifth immediately post-graduation. [ 53 ] Of the seniors who applied to medical school in 2017, 76 % were accepted ; to law school, 96 % were accepted. [ 53 ] Vassar offers a database of well over 30,000 alumni where students may seek career advice and opportunities. numerous graduates of the college have earned eminence in their fields, garnering Academy, Emmy, Tony, Peabody and Golden Globe awards for work on degree and in film and television, MacArthur Fellowships ( “ ace grants ” ) for invention in fields including astrophysics, epidemiology, and medicine, Pulitzer Prize recognition for contributions to american literature, poetry, and fact-finding report, arsenic well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Science for achievements in astronomy, computer skill, and play .
student life sentence [edit ]
Traditions [edit ]
Vassar students celebrating Founder ‘s Day in 1935 Founder ‘s Day is an annual campus festival at Vassar College that normally takes station in late April or early May. It started as a surprise birthday party for college founder Matthew Vassar ‘s seventy-fourth birthday and evolved into an annual celebration. [ 54 ] Originally, Founder ‘s Day was a spontaneous event consisting of lectures, but was soon replaced with plays, pageants, and more recreational activities. Circus and fair activities followed, with the eventual accession of the modern day music events over the course of two days. More recently themes have been added, including Alice in Wonderland, [ 55 ] Dinosaurs, [ 56 ] Vintage 1800s Vassar, [ 57 ] Nickelodeon, Nintendo, and Candyland. [ 57 ] holocene artists at Founder ‘s Day have included The Walkmen, Edan, DJ /rupture, Odd Nosdam, Jel, [ 58 ] Toro y Moi, [ 59 ] and Odesza. [ 60 ]
extracurricular organizations [edit ]
The Vastards perform in 2014
Campus publications [edit ]
Miscellany News Front page of the May 20, 1922 ,
- 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.[80] It is available for free most Thursdays when school is in session. In 2008–09, it became one of the only college newspapers in the country to begin updating its website daily.
- The Vassar Chronicle is the college’s only political journal, which seeks to expand the breadth of political dialogue on campus by publishing long-form opinion columns. The Chronicle is the revivification of a student publication that appeared from 1944 to 1959 and during the 1970s; the modern-day Chronicle has been published monthly since 2010 and currently has a 1,000-copy circulation.
- The Vassar Student Review is an annual literary and art magazine featuring works (fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, artwork, photography, essays, etc.) by Vassar students. It is the oldest student-run literary publication in the college’s history. Its purpose is to serve the needs and expand the creative voice of Vassar’s literary and art community. The VSR also orchestrates events and activities garnered towards the enrichment of Vassar’s writers community. Some past events have included regularly-scheduled writing workshops and writer’s nights in the cafe, as well as the sponsorship of various relevant speakers brought by other organizations.
- Squirm “is a submissions-based magazine about sex and sexuality. Squirm seeks to create a sex-positive forum on campus for the artistic, literary, and creative exploration of sex.”[81] The magazine, published annually since 1999, typically runs around 60 pages and is only distributed to the campus community.[82]
- Contrast is the college’s art and style magazine. It is published each semester.
- Boilerplate Magazine is a student-run publication that calls itself an “alternative news source… that aims to publish radical pieces and creative works which address issues through a socially conscious lens.” Due to its independence from collegiate funds, Boilerplate Magazine is generally more critical of the college than other student-run outlets.[83][84]
- Unscrewed (1 October 1976 – 1 April 1989) was a student-run consumer report on campus residential and classroom safety, local food and drug price comparison, an annual local pizza delivery survey, and long-term topics such as the college’s endowment and staffing.[85]
radio station [edit ]
WVKR, 91.3 FM, is the college ‘s radio receiver station, established in 1971. The post ‘s magnetic disk jockey, chiefly student volunteers, play an eclectic diverseness of music genres .
scholar government [edit ]
In March 2016, in a 15–2 vote, the Vassar Student Association ( VSA ) passed a resolution calling for the support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and the boycott of Israel. [ 86 ] [ 87 ] In April 2016, the BDS resolution went to a school-wide referendum, where it was defeated 573–503. [ 88 ]
Athletics [edit ]
Vassar teams, known as the Brewers, compete in Division III of the NCAA, as a member of the Liberty League. The nickname originates from the college ‘s founder and namesake Matthew Vassar, whose family ran a brewery in Poughkeepsie and would late amass a goodly fortune in the diligence. Vassar College presently offers the stick to varsity athletics : basketball, baseball, cross-country, fencing ( competes in the Northeast Fencing Conference ), field field hockey ( women only ), golf ( women only ), lacrosse, rowing, rugby, soccer, squash, swimming/diving, tennis, track, and volleyball. Club sports include ultimate ( open, mix, and women ‘s ), ski team ( competes in USCSA ), equestrian team ( competes in IHSA ), polo team ( USPA ), cycling team ( competes in ECCC ), quidditch, and co-ed U.S. figure Skating synchronized skating team. basketball teams play in Vassar ‘s raw Athletics and Fitness Center. Volleyball teams play in Kenyon Hall, reopened in 2006. Soccer, baseball, field ice hockey and lacrosse teams play at Prentiss Fields, which have been wholly renovated in 2007 to feature a light turf, four grass fields, a baseball field and a track surrounding the turf. besides in 2007, a varsity weight board was opened in the basement of Kenyon Hall, entirely for the coach of varsity athletes. In 2008, the Vassar men ‘s volleyball team made the school ‘s inaugural appearance in a national backing game, beating UC Santa Cruz 3–0 in the semifinal before falling to Springfield in the championship game. [ 89 ] In 2007, the Vassar cycle team hosted the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Championship in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, New York. The rival included a 100-mile ( 160 kilometer ) road slipstream over the Shawangunk Mountains in New Paltz angstrom well as a criterium in Poughkeepsie precisely blocks from the school ‘s campus. [ 90 ] In a controversial move, on November 5, 2009, the athletics department leaders decided the men ‘s and women ‘s rowing team would transition over a biennial period from a varsity to a club sport as a cost-saving measure. [ 91 ] In 1940, 1941 and 1942, Vassar athletes won national intercollegiate women ‘s tennis championships each year in both singles ( Katherine Hubbell ) and doubles ( Hubbell, Carolyn “ Lonny ” Myers ). [ 92 ] [ 93 ] In 2018, the Vassar women ‘s rugby team won the school ‘s first team national championship, beating Winona State 50–13 in the concluding of the USA Rugby Women ‘s Division 2. [ 94 ]
noteworthy people [edit ]
celebrated Vassar alumni include :
luminary attendees who did not graduate from Vassar include :
noteworthy Vassar faculty include :
veranda [edit ]
References [edit ]
farther reading [edit ]
- Bruno, Maryann; Daniels, Elizabeth A. (2001). Vassar College. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-0454-4.
- Elet, Yvonne; Duncan, Virginia (2019). “Beatrix Farrand and campus landscape at Vassar: pedagogy and practice, 1925–29”. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes. 39 (2): 105–136. doi:10.1080/14601176.2018.1556509. S2CID 150106489.
- Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz (1993). Alma mater: design and experience in the women’s colleges from their nineteenth-century beginnings to the 1930s (2nd ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachuchusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-869-8.
