K286-2011 - NY Senate Open Legislation - Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of Vassar College

Sponsor: Miller J / Multi-sponsor(s): Kirwan, Molinaro
Law Section: Resolutions, Legislative
K286-2011 Actions

Mar 23, 2011: adopted
K286-2011 Text

 LEGISLATIVE  RESOLUTION  commemorating  the  150th Anniversary of Vassar
 College
 WHEREAS, New York State's commitment to education is  unparalleled;  its
 history and stature are secured by the superlative caliber of its educa
 tional professionals and the students they inspire; and
 WHEREAS,  It  is  the  sense of this Legislative Body to recognize and
 commend those exemplary institutions  of  higher  education  within  the
 State of New York which have achieved world renown and brought pride and
 honor  to  our  State  and  Nation  through their traditions of academic
 excellence; and
 WHEREAS, Attendant to such concern, and in full accord with its  long
 standing  traditions,  this  Legislative Body is justly proud to commem
 orate the 150th Anniversary of Vassar College; and
 WHEREAS, A highly selective, residential, co-educational liberal  arts
 college, Vassar College is located in the scenic Hudson Valley, 75 miles
 north  of  New  York City in Poughkeepsie; consistently ranked among the
 top liberal arts colleges in the country, Vassar College is renowned for
 pioneering achievements in education, for its long history of curricular
 innovation, and for the beauty of its campus; and
 WHEREAS, The original mission of Vassar College, founded  in  1861  by
 Matthew  Vassar,  was to give young women a liberal arts education equal
 to that of the best men's colleges of that particular day;  rather  than
 the "teacher training" typically provided at "female seminaries," Vassar
 College  offered  women  the  full  range of courses from art history to
 zoology, taught by the leading scholars of the day; and
 WHEREAS, One hundred years later, in 1969, Vassar  College  again  led
 the  way,  becoming  the first of the Seven Sisters colleges to open its
 doors to men; today, the student body enrollment is  2,400,  60%  women,
 40%  men,  from  every  state  in  the  United States as well as from 45
 foreign countries; and
 WHEREAS, The faculty numbers 260 distinguished scholars, many of  them
 nationally  or  internationally recognized in their fields; the pedagog
 ical tradition at Vassar College began with the noted  astronomer  Maria
 Mitchell,  the  first woman elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences,
 and the first member of the faculty to be hired; she took  her  students
 to Iowa in 1869 and to Colorado in 1878 to observe a solar eclipse; and
 WHEREAS,  Long  recognized for curricular innovation, Vassar College's
 departments, and interdisciplinary and  multidisciplinary  programs  now
 range from cognitive science to classical studies and from media studies
 to  neuroscience  and  behavior;  Vassar was among the first colleges to
 teach drama, psychology, and Russian, and among the first to  experiment
 with interdepartmental courses in the early 1900s; and
 WHEREAS,  Matthew  Vassar declared that art should stand "boldly forth
 as an educational force," so his college was the Nation's  first  to  be
 founded  with  a  gallery  and  teaching  collection; today, the Frances
 Lehman Loeb Art Center, built in 1993, boasts over 16,000 works; and
 WHEREAS, Universally acknowledged as one of the most beautiful in  the
 country,  the  Vassar  College  campus  comprises over 1,000 picturesque
 acres and more than 100 buildings, including two National Historic Land
 marks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic  to  International  which
 have  been  designed over the course of the college's history by some of
 the most prominent architects of the day, including James Renwick,  Jr.,
 Francis R. Allen, Eero Saarinen, Marcel Brueur, and Cesar Pelli; and
 WHEREAS,  A  designated  arboretum, the Vassar College campus features
 more than 200 species of trees, a native plant preserve, and a  250-acre
 ecological preserve; and
 WHEREAS,  As  it  celebrates  its sesquicentennial anniversary, Vassar
 College's most valuable asset is the myriad accomplishments of its grad
 uates, some of which include: Ellen Swallow Richards, Class of 1870, the
 founder of ecology; Crystal Eastman, Class of  1903,  cofounder  of  the
 American  Civil Liberties Union; Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, Class
 of 1928, inventor of the compiler and coinventor  of  COBOL;  astronomer
 Vera  Cooper Rubin, Class of 1948, discoverer of "dark matter"; Patricia
 Goldman-Rakic,  Class  of  1959,  the  neuroscientist  who  mapped   the
 prefrontal  lobe; Geraldine Laybourne, Class of 1969, founder and presi
 dent of Oxygen Media; Academy Award-winning actor Meryl Streep, Class of
 1971; architect Adam Kalkin, Class of 1984, designer of the Quik  House;
 and  filmmaker Noah Baumbach, Class of 1991, writer and director of "The
 Squid and the Whale"; and
 WHEREAS, Ably led by President Catharine Hill, Vassar College  contin
 ues to prosper today and into the future; and
 WHEREAS,  With great admiration, this Legislative Body is proud to pay
 tribute to this eminent academic institution which stands at the thresh
 old of the future with its legacy of outstanding  achievements  and  its
 impressive  body of distinguished faculty and alumni; now, therefore, be
 it
 RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause  in  its  deliberations  to
 commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Vassar College; and be it further
 RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be tran
 smitted to Catharine Hill, President of Vassar College.
K286-2011: Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of Vassar College

K286-2011 Actions

K286-2011 Text

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