Manhattanville College

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The architectural and administrative centerpiece of the Manhattanville campus, Reid Hall (1864), is named after Whitelaw Reid owner of the New York Tribune.

Manhattanville College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Purchase, New York, USA. Manhattanville's mission is to "educate students to become ethically and socially responsible leaders for the global community."^{[citation needed]} The college has received much media attention through the success of the men's ice hockey team coached by Kevin Levinthal. The team spent most of the 2006-07 season ranked #1 in the nation.

Current president Richard Berman has served for nearly 11 years. Under his administration Manhattanville has undergone a renaissance which has gained the college much acclaim.^[1]

Today approximately one thousand seven hundred students attend Manhattanville. Renowned for its commitment to diversity, Manhattanville boasts an impressive academic body made up of students from 59 countries and 40 states.^{[citation needed]} Guidebooks have called the Manhattanville student body, smart, sociable, athletic and easy-going.^{[citation needed]} Currently the three most popular majors at the college are, business, psychology and history.^{[citation needed]} In accordance with the college's Portfolio System, which is the nation's oldest such system, graduate candidates must present a freshman year assessment essay; a study plan outlining all course work counted toward the degree; a program evaluation essay, which gives a rationale for the student's choice of courses, as well as a personal evaluation of the course; and specific examples of work in writing and research.^{[citation needed]}

Now in its 61st year, the Touchstone remains the only newspaper serving the Manhattanville community.^{[citation needed]} Two other student-run publications also exist: The Right World View a conservative publication funded by The Leadership Institute; and The Link a progressive publication created with the help of the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action.

[edit] Campus

Manhattanville is located on a 100 acre wooded campus in Purchase, New York, on the former estate of Whitelaw Reid. The centerpiece of the campus is a quadrangle designed by Frederick Law Olmstead which is flanked on its north end by a massive granite castle, built in 1895 to designs by McKim, Mead & White.^{[citation needed]} The mansion and its grounds were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] History

In 1841 in a three-story house on Houston Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic boarding school for girls, was founded. The Academy relocated in 1847 to an area in the north western part of Manhattan Island on a hill overlooking the village of Manhattanville. Destroyed by a fire in 1888, the Academy was rebuilt on the same foundation and continued to grow, both in curriculum and physical environment.^{[citation needed]}

An aerial photo of the former campus of the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in the Manhattanville section of New York City, taken from the south looking northeast.

In March of 1917, 76 years after its founding as an academy, Manhattanville was chartered as a college by the New York State Board of Regents, empowering it to grant both undergraduate and graduate degrees. In 1952, the college moved to Purchase to the former estate of Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Herald Tribune and Ambassador to the United Kingdom before World War II. Long heralded as the most prestigious Catholic women's college, after becoming co-educational and non denominational Manhattanville began to experience difficult financial problems. In the past decade however, the college has been successfully raising its capital funds which has enabled it to build new facilities and increase its endowment.^[2] Today, Manhattanville's "Castle" looks out over the green of the quadrangle to the renovated residence halls, academic buildings and the housing complex for faculty and staff from around the globe.

Co-educational since 1969 and non-denominational in its governance since 1971, Manhattanville's original vision lives on in the tradition of service begun by the Society of the Sacred Heart, extending from the students to the global community. During the Depression and World War II, President Grace Cowardin Dammann, RSCJ, instilled in Manhattanville's students a keen awareness of social problems by encouraging them to spend one day a week working with children at the Barat Settlement in the Bowery and at Casita Maria in East Harlem. Mother Dammann's widely published speech, "Principles vs. Prejudice," inspired other colleges to break down racial barriers.

[edit] Traditions

• 200 Nights Halloween Party,100 Nights Theme party,50 Nights Toga Party in honor of remaining nights until graduation.
• Fall Jam "Fall Fest" Music Festival
• Quad Jam
• West Point Football Saturday
• International Bazaar
• Shakespeare in the Castle
• Homecoming Weekend
• History Department Annual BBQ Manhattanville History Department
  

  

  The nineteenth-century "Lady Chapel" in the Ohnell Environmental Park converted into a 24 hour student center

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[edit] Trivia

• Reid Hall was a potential site for the United Nations.
• The "living classroom" and restored Lady Chapel of the Ohnell Environmental Park were designed by renowned architect Maya Lin who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.
• The campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Central Park in New York City.
• There is a graveyard on campus which holds the remains of nearly 50 nuns.
• In 2003 Toni Smith, a member of the women's basketball team, stood with her back turned in protest against U.S. foreign policy during the playing of the national anthem at team games; her protest received [2] international media attention.
• During the Vietnam War, the main academic building was overtaken by students in protest.
• Hand-crafted lava stones salvaged from the Japan Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair form a sculpture garden on campus. The Pavilion was given as a gift from the Japanese government to the college in 1965, but proved impossible to reconstruct.
• Juan Salas '06 began My Soldier, a program to support American soldiers, the program to date has nearly 500,000 members.
• The opulent interior of Reid Hall was used in the recent film The Thomas Crown Affair
• Valiants Ice Hockey plays their home game at Playland Park.
• Manhattanville boasts the nation's oldest undergraduate portfolio system.
• Senator Edward Kennedy met his former wife, Joan Bennett Kennedy while delivering a speech dedicating the gymnasium in his sister's honor.

[edit] Manhattanville Library Rare Book and Manuscripts Room

The Rare Book and Manuscripts Room preserves both manuscripts and printed materials from the Manhattanville College Library. The book collection consists of approximately 2,400 titles that span the history of the book in the United States and Europe. Subject fields represented include history, religion, literature, biography, and philosophy. The collection also includes other formats such as periodicals, Jew pamphlets, government documents, maps, and manuscripts. Particularly noteworthy are five incunabula (books printed before 1500) and several bound manuscript volumes, also from the like a hundred years ago. The latter include individual collections of psalms and prayers intended as an aid to private devotion, known as Books of Hours. The most notable of these is the Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis, Cum Calendario -- also known as the Manhattanville Book of Hours.[3]

The Quadrangle at Manhattanville, designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead.

[edit] In Film, Television and the Arts

Film, television and art productions that feature Manhattanville:

• Thomas Crown Affair(1999) which utilized the interior of Reid Hall and featured a character who is from Manhattanville
• Law and Order SVU which used the interior of the President's Cottage
• The Funeral(1996) in which a main character says she graduated from Manhattanville.
• Richard Rodgers visited Manhattanville's Pius X School of Liturgical Music (1918-1969) in 1959 to conduct research for The Sound of Music and according to college documents Rodgers was inspired to write the song, The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Music while on campus.

[edit] Current Projects

• Manhattanville Creative Arts and Student Center (set to open Fall 2007)
• The Ohnell Environmental Park, featuring the restored "Lady Chapel" and "Living Classroom" designed by Maya Lin (dedicated Fall 2006)

[edit] Notable alumni

The Kennedys dedicate Kennedy Gym 1957

• Rose Kennedy, mother of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Founder and Honorary Chairman of the Special Olympics; Executive President of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation
• Joan Bennett Kennedy
• Patrick Hughes Fashion Designer
• Daryl A. Mundis, the Deputy Attorney at The Hague for the Slobodan Milošević trial
• Ethel Kennedy, founder of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center
• Josie Natori, President of Natori Co. International
• Jean Kennedy, US Ambassador to Ireland
• Barbara Farrell Vucanovich (R) US House of Representatives Nevada 2nd District
• Flora Miller Biddle, President of the Whitney Museum of American Art
• Karen Akers, Singer, actress and Tony Award winner
• Carmen Marc Valvo Fashion Designer
• Sergio Danguillecourt Director of the Board, Bacardi
• Anita Florio, New York Supreme Court Justice
• Barbara Boggs Sigmund, Mayor of Princeton, New Jersey
• Gov. Sila Calderón, Governor of Puerto Rico
• Michaela Walsh, President and founder of Women's World Banking
• Marcia P. DeWitt, President and CEO of GuilfordPare
• James Badge Dale, Film and Television Actor
• Maria Elena Lagomasino Chairman and CEO JP Morgan
• Vanessa van Arendonk, 2003 Miss Curacao and current student
• Doris Magsaysay Ho, Entrepreneure Of The Year Philippines 2004

[edit] External links

• Manhattanville College
• Manhattanville's Alma Mater

[edit] References