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Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college situated in Poughkeepsie. Formerly a women's college, Vassar is the only co-educational of the Seven Sisters.
The college was founded by its namesake, Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the scenic Hudson Valley, approximately 70 miles (100 km) north of New York City. Vassar is often praised for its beautiful campus, a 1000 acre (4 km²) lot of land marked by period and modern buildings that is also an arboretum. The great majority of students live on campus. Founded as an all-female college, it went co-ed in 1969 after declining an offer to merge with Yale. Since that time, it has maintained its reputation as one of America's outstanding liberal arts colleges, and is especially noted for its tolerant social atmosphere. The newly renovated library has unusually large holdings for a college of its size. It includes special collections of originals of Albert Einstein and Elizabeth Bishop.
Today over two thousand students attend Vassar, including many international students. They are taught by over two hundred faculty members, virtually all of whom hold tertiary degrees.
Trivia
- The school's 23 Division III sports teams are known as the Brewers. They are named for Matthew Vassar's occupation.
- John F. Kennedy reputedly visited Vassar a number of times while he was an undergraduate at Harvard. (This would have been a decade before Jackie went there, however.) Mary Meyer, a woman known to have been a mistress of Kennedy while he was President, was a Vassar graduate. She was murdered under mysterious circumstances in 1964.
- The original colors of the college were pink and grey, intended to symbolize "the rose of sunlight breaking through the gray of women's intellectual life." After Vassar became coeducational, the pink was darkened to maroon.
- The Group, a controversial novel by Mary McCarthy class of ’33, follows the lives of 8 Vassar graduates. Very little of the book, though, actually takes place at Vassar. It was made into a movie by Sidney Lumet, released in 1966.
- The opening flyby in the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan is over the Vassar campus and Kermit graduates from "Muppet University" on the steps of the Vassar dining hall. In addition, the opening scene of The Time Machine was filmed at Vassar and all the etxras for that scene are Vassar students. Vassar is also mentioned in the films Moonraker, Sabrina, Police Academy, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, the television series The Simpsons and Spin City and numerous other television shows and movies. It is usually associated with defining well-educated women in society.
- Vassar has a world class art collection. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (http://fllac.vassar.edu/) is run as a independent museum and is open to the public.
- The campus is a registered aboretum. There are over 200 tree species spread over 100 acres (400,000 m²) of forest land.
- Except for Strong House, the one all-female dormitory, all of the student resident halls at Vassar are co-ed and have co-ed bathrooms.
- Following World War II Vassar enrolled a total of 152 veterans as part of the G.I. Bill of Rights.
- Vassar maintains a 60/40 to 65/35 Female/Male ratio amongst its student body.
- Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys went to Vassar for six months.
- Anne Hathaway (actress) is currently a student at Vassar.
Famous Alumni
Famous Vassar alumni include poets Edna St. Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Bishop, actresses Frances Sternhagen, Jean Arthur, Meryl Streep, Hope Davis, and Lisa Kudrow, chemist Ellen Swallow, CEO of Oxygen Media Geraldine Laybourne, film director Noah Baumbach, and computer scientist Grace Hopper. Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis attended Vassar, but graduated from George Washington University. Jane Fonda also attended Vassar. Children of famous entertainers and artists also attended Vassar, including the child/ren of Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Samuel L. Jackson.
Architecture
The Vassar campus boasts several buildings of architectural interest. Main Building 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 is on the registry of national historic landmarks. Many beautiful old brick buildings are scattered throughout the bucolic campus, but there are also several modern and contemporary structures worth noting. Ferry House, a student cooperative, was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1951. Another somewhat controversial design, Noyes House, was designed by Finnish 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 Cesar Pelli was asked to design the Loeb Art Center, which was completed in the early 1990's. Pelli also worked on the renovation of the Avery Hall theater and Marie Mitchell.
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