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Sarah Lawrence is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States. It is located in southern Westchester County, New York, in the City of Yonkers, New York, 15 miles north of Manhattan. Founded as a women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence has been fully coeducational since 1968. The College is known for its rigorous academic and creative standards, and low student-to-faculty ratio of 6-to-1. Individual student-faculty tutorials patterned after the Oxford/Cambridge system are a key component of all areas of study. Sarah Lawrence emphasizes scholarship, particularly in the humanities, performing arts, and writing, and places a high value on independent study. In The Best College for You, a 2000 co-publication of Time Magazine and The Princeton Review, Sarah Lawrence College was named the liberal arts College of the Year, citing the school's strong emphasis on writing as the key to its educational excellence.

History

Sarah Lawrence College was founded as a women's college in 1926 by real-estate mogul William Van Duzer Lawrence on the grounds of his estate in Westchester County and was named in honor of his wife, Sarah. William Lawrence played a critical role in the development of the community of Bronxville, New York near the present-day Sarah Lawrence campus, and his name can be found on the affluent Lawrence Park and Lawrence Park West neighborhoods, the Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Corporation, and on Lawrence Hospital in downtown Bronxville, an institution that was created when Lawrence’s son, Dudley, nearly died en route to a hospital in neighboring New York City. Lawrence embodied ideas from the Progressivist movement of the 1890s, especially his view that the arts were a crucial element in the social evolution of individuals and families, in developing both private and public sensibilities, and in creating equal relations between men and women. His disappointment at the failure of education to encourage his daughters' artistic interests led him to found the college.

The College was intended from its inception to provide instruction in the arts and humanities for women. A major component of the College's early curriculum was “productive leisure,” wherein students were required to work for eight hours weekly in such fields as modeling, shorthand, typewriting, applying makeup, and gardening. Its pedagogy modeled on the tutorial system of Oxford University combined independent research projects, individually supervised by the teaching faculty, and seminars with low student-to-faculty ratio -- a credo it retains despite its cost to the present. Followed by Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence was the first liberal arts college in the United States to incorporate a rigorous approach to the arts with the principles of progressive education, focusing on the primacy of teaching and the concentration of curricular efforts on individual needs.

Harold Taylor, President of Sarah Lawrence College from 1945 to 1959 highly influenced the college. Taylor, elected president at age 30, maintained a friendship with educational philosopher John Dewey, and worked to employ the Dewey method at Sarah Lawrence. Taylor spent much of his career calling for educational reform in the United States, using the success of his own College as an example of the possibilities of a personalized, modern, and rigorous approach to higher education.

Sarah Lawrence became coeducational in 1968. Prior to 1968 however, after abortive discussions in 1967 between Sarah Lawrence College and Princeton University to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the university, the Princeton University administration decided to admit women and turned to the issue of transforming the school's operations and facilities into a female-friendly campus, at which point Sarah Lawrence College became coeducational.

Political involvement and activism

Political activism has played a crucial role in forming the spirit of the Sarah Lawrence community since the early years of the College. As early as 1938, students were volunteering in working-class sections of Yonkers, New York to help bring equality and educational opportunities to poor and minority citizens, and the Sarah Lawrence College War Board, organized by students in the fall of 1942, sought to aid troops fighting in World War II. During a time when the College's enrollment consisted of only 293 students, 204 signed up as volunteers during the first week of the War Board. During the so-called McCarthy Years, a number of Sarah Lawrence's faculty members were accused by the American Legion of being sympathetic to the Communist Party, and were called before the Jenner Committee. Since that time, activism has played a central role in student life, with movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and for student and faculty diversity in the 1980s. Also in the 1960s, students established an Upward Bound program for students from lower-income and poverty areas to prepare for college. Theatre Outreach, the Child Development Institute, the Empowering Teachers Program, the Community Writers program, the Office of Community Partnership and the Fulbright High School Writers Program are among the many programs founded the since the 1970s to provide services to the larger community. In the late 1980s, students occupied Westlands, the main administrative building for the campus, in a sit-in for wider diversity. Students have remained active in recent years, with numerous organizations and movements sprouting in response to the Iraq War. For many years, the College has been considered as being at the vanguard of the sexual rights movement.

Academics

At the undergraduate level, Sarah Lawrence offers a Bachelor of Arts degree where, instead of traditional majors, students pursue a wide variety of courses in four different curricular distributions: the Creative Arts (creative writing, music, dance, theater, painting, film studies|film), history and the social sciences (anthropology]], economics, political science, sociology), the humanities (Asian studies, art history, film studies, languages, literature, philosophy, religion), and natural science and mathematics (biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, and mathematics). Each student is assigned to a faculty advisor, known as a "don", to plan a course of study. Most courses, apart from those in the performing arts, consist of two parts: the seminar, limited to 15 students, and the conference, a private, semi-weekly meeting with a seminar professor. In these conferences, students develop individual projects that extend the course material and link it to their personal interests. Sarah Lawrence has no required courses and traditional examinations have largely been replaced with writing final research papers and essays. Additionally, grades are recorded only for transcript purposes—academic evaluations are given in lieu of grades. The College sponsors international programs in Florence, at Wadham College, Oxford, at Reid Hall in Paris, and at the British American Drama Academy in London. Additionally, Sarah Lawrence is one of the only American colleges operating an international program in Cuba; Hampshire College being the one of the others.

Sarah Lawrence also offers Master's-level programs in Writing, the Art of Teaching, Child Development, Health Advocacy, Human Genetics, Theatre, and Dance, and is home to the nation's oldest graduate program in Women's History.

International programs: The College has six international programs in four countries. Sarah Lawrence makes all practical efforts to preserve its most characteristic elements, such as one-on-one interaction with professors, small classes, and an emphasis on qualitative comprehension, in its programs overseas.

• Havana: The only formal American university program currently operating in Cuba, the program is open to students with an intermediate or advanced level of competency in Spanish, and focuses on language skills, the social sciences, and the humanities.
• London: Centered at the British American Drama Academy, the program expands Sarah Lawrence's long-standing and vibrant tradition in the performing arts.
• Oxford: An advanced academic program based at Wadham College, Oxford University in England.
• Paris: Centered at historic Reid Hall in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, the program is Sarah Lawrence's oldest and focuses on the humanities and creative arts.
• Catania: Open to students who have an advanced comprehension of Italian, the Catania program takes advantage of its Sicilian setting to provide students with an experience in cultural immersion.
• Florence: Open to students at all levels of Italian-language comprehension, the Florence program is noted for its art history program.

Graduate programs: Sarah Lawrence offers eight graduate programs, each of which confers the Master of Arts or Master of Science degree upon its graduates. In contrast to highly specialized, research-oriented doctoral study, these programs reflect the emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and the close student-teacher relationship that have come to be characteristic of the College's undergraduate program. Intensive work with faculty members, small seminars, and one-on-one conferences form the foundation of the curricular model. According to their own literature, the programs make an effort to balance the "theoretical (usually discussed in seminars and conferences) with the practical (in the form of fieldwork, practicums, research or creative work). This experiential work is most often conducted not in isolation, but in the midst of a community. Interdisciplinary work and ideas are encouraged, as is an ethic of social responsibility". There are approximately 340 graduate students currently enrolled in the following programs:

• Art of Teaching
• Child Development
• Dance
• Health Advocacy
• Human Genetics
• Theatre
• Women's History
• Writing

SAT and academic ranking:

In 2007, some educators in the United States began to question the impact of rankings on the college admissions process, due in part to the 11 March 2007 Washington Post article "The Cost of Bucking College Rankings" by Dr. Michele Tolela Myers, the former president of Sarah Lawrence College. As Sarah Lawrence College dropped its SAT test score submission requirement for its undergraduate applicants in 2003, thus joining the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission, SLC does not have SAT data to send to U.S. News for its national survey. Of this decision, Myers states, "We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions. At present, Sarah Lawrence is the only American college that completely disregards SAT scores in its admission process. As a result of this policy, in the same Washington Post article, Dr. Myers stated that she was informed by the U.S. News and World Report that if no SAT scores were submitted, U.S. News would "make up a number" to use in its magazines. She further argues that if SLC were to decide to stop sending all data to U.S. News and World Report, that their ranking would be artificially decreased. U.S. News and World Report issued a response to this article on 12 March 2007 which stated that the evaluation of Sarah Lawrence is currently under review. The most recent (2008) issue of the US News and World Report rankings has put Sarah Lawrence among the "unranked" insititutions, colleges and universities that for a variety of reasons do not adhere to the magazine's guidelines.

On Tuesday, June 19, 2007, following a meeting of the Annapolis Group, which represents over 100 liberal arts colleges, Sarah Lawrence announced that it would join others who had previously signed the letter to college presidents asking them not to participate in the "reputation survey" section of the U.S. News and World Report survey (this section comprises 25% of the ranking). Myers commented on this in a 20 June 2007 article for the New York Times by stating, "they will do what they will do, we will do what we will do. And we want to do it in a principled way". Myers also indicated in a press release for Sarah Lawrence that the college will be involved in developing the new database of colleges discussed in the Annapolis Group statement as they "believe in accountability and openness, and that the public has a right to solid and reliable information about the important decisions involved in choosing a college". The press release also indicated that Sarah Lawrence "plans not to participate in the peer reputational survey or data collection for U.S. News and World Report’s rankings" as, according to Myers, "by submitting data and the peer reputation survey we have tacitly been endorsing these rankings all the information we have provided to U.S. News in the past will be available to the public through other channels".

The Middle States Association of Colleges ranking:

Sarah Lawrence College, as a member of The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, is accredited by The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, a federally-recognized regional accrediting body. The Commission on Higher Education accredits more than 500 degree-granting colleges and universities in the Middle States region, which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and several locations internationally.

The Commission is a voluntary, non-governmental, membership association that defines, maintains, and promotes educational excellence across institutions with diverse missions, student populations, and resources. It examines each institution as a whole, rather than specific programs within institutions.

In June 2007, The Middle States Commission on Higher Education completed its decennial review of Sarah Lawrence College’s accreditation status. The Commission found Sarah Lawrence College to be in compliance with its accreditation ‘standards of excellence.’

In making its report to the Sarah Lawrence community, The Commission on Higher Education’s evaluation team made the following observations:

• Sarah Lawrence College is an institution of rare quality which expresses extraordinary dedication to a clear, distinctive and compelling educational mission. Its ability to focus care and resources on the development of each student’s individual intellectual and artistic talent and passion is truly awe-inspiring and the Team is deeply impressed by the effort and success of the College in protecting that core mission in a world of constant change and challenged resources for small liberal arts colleges. That educational core binds faculty, staff, students and trustees in a single, cohesive community of mutual respect and shared commitment to educational excellence. The College benefits from an exceptional faculty who are at once dedicated to its pedagogical mission and productive in their scholarly and artistic work, who are energized by the freedom to follow their own passions in the courses they create, and who take their broader institutional responsibilities to heart. The College benefits as well from an exceptional staff who understand and take as seriously their commitment to the College’s core educational mission. And it benefits from terrific students who thrive on the educational experience the College offers. Moreover, the College is able to continue to recruit students and faculty who sustain its distinctive character.

Tuition and finances

The total cost of tuition, fees, room, and board for a student entering in the fall of 2007 was $51,694 (tuition and fees were together $39,786).

Campus

The Sarah Lawrence campus is located on 41 hilly acres of grassy fields and rocky outcroppings atop a promontory above the banks of the Bronx River. Much of the campus was originally a part of the estate of the College's founder, William Van Duzer Lawrence, though the College has more than doubled its geographical size since Lawrence bequeathed his estate to the College in 1926. The terrain of the campus is characterized by dramatic outcroppings of exposed bedrock shaded by large oak and elm trees. Much of the older architecture on the campus follows the Tudor style that was popular in the area during the early 20th century, and many of the College's newer buildings attempt to achieve an updated interpretation of the same pattern language. It can be said that the campus is divided into two distinctive sections: the "Old Campus" and the "New Campus," wherein the former is roughly contained within the boundaries of the erstwhile Lawrence estate, and the latter is that which was obtained some time after the College's earliest years.

The area outside the original Lawrence estate is home to the College's more cutting-edge facilities. A number of stately, century-old Tudor style mansions will be found among these newer additions, including Andrews, Tweed, Lynd, Marshall Field and Slonim House. Each was once a private estate, purchased by the college during periods of growth and expansion. The more modest tudor houses along Mead Way were also once private residences that now serve as dorms for Sarah Lawrence students. 'Slonim Woods' is a group of newer, townhouse-style dorms, built on the grounds of Slonim House.

The Campbell Sports Center was constructed in 1998 in response to an increased focus on physical fitness and sports. This state-of-the-art facility includes an indoor pool, gymnasium, track, raquetball courts and weightrooms.

In 2004, the College completed construction of a state-of-the-art visual arts facility, the Monika A. and Charles A. Heimbold Visual Arts Center, the sleek architecture and environmentally friendly aspects of which earned the College national press attention. Just down the road is Hill House, a seven-story apartment building purchased by the College in the late 1990s that now houses student residences. Across the street from Hill House is the large Wrexham house, also in the Tudor style, that was purchased by Sarah Lawrence in 2004 from the government of Rwanda. This building once housed the Rwandan consul, has been renovated and is used by the College for various graduate studies programs. On the opposite end of the campus stands the Science and Mathematics Center, completed in 1994.

Presidents

• Karen R. Lawrence (2007- present) is a noted scholar of James Joyce, holding a B.A. from Yale University, a Master of Arts in English Literature from Tufts University, and a Ph.D. in literature from Columbia University. Before her tenure at Sarah Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence served as the dean of the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine from 1998 to 2007, and as a member and subsequent chair of the English faculty at the University of Utah from 1978 to 1997.

• Michele Tolela Myers (1998–2007), was born in Morocco and raised in Paris. Myers holds a Ph.D. and a master's degree from the University of Denver, another master's degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, and a Diplôme in political science and economics from the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Paris. Myers saw the recent completion of a $75 million capital campaign at Sarah Lawrence, as well as the construction of several new buildings and facilities on the campus.
• Alice Stone Ilchman (1981–1998), who served as an educational advisor to President Jimmy Carter, saw the expansion of the College's physical resources, faculty, and student body.
• Charles DeCarlo (1969–1981. A former IBM executive, DeCarlo was a strong force in solidifying the College's finances.
• Esther Raushenbush (1965–1969). A former member of the Sarah Lawrence literature faculty (1935–1946 and 1957–1962), dean of the College (1946–1957), and founder and director of Sarah Lawrence's Center for Continuing Education (1962–1965).
• Paul Ward (1960–1965). A former engineering professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
• Harrison Tweed (Acting President, 1959–1960). A longtime board member, Tweed increased the size of the College while refusing to enlarge classes.
• Harold Taylor (1945–1959). Renowned for having remembered the names of every student on campus, Taylor, elected at age 30, was the youngest and perhaps most influential president in the College's history.
• Constance Warren (1929–1945). Warren's primary contribution to the College was her recruitment of a nationally renowned faculty and her advocacy of a progressive educational philosophy in the College's early years.
• Marion Coats (1924–1929). A friend of Vassar College President Henry McCracken and of Sarah Lawrence founder William Van Duzer Lawrence, Coats served as the College's first president.

Notable people

• Faculty - Among the more notable of the educators who are currently teaching at the college are novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet, Middle Eastern Affairs expert Fawaz Gerges, poet Marie Howe, film historians Gilberto Perez and Malcolm Turvey, mathematician Dan King, and economist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, III. In 2005, current faculty member Eduardo Lago won the oldest literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Nadal.

• Entertainment industry - The entertainment industry has been influenced by many Sarah Lawrence alums, including directors J.J. Abrams and Brian De Palma, and news personality Barbara Walters. Notable actors include Cary Elwes, Bea Arthur, Sam Robards, Joanne Woodward, Téa Leoni, Eric Mabius and Julianna Margulies.

• Politics - Notable alumni involved in politics include Amanda Burden, Director of City Planning for New York; Sharon Hom, Director of Human Rights in China; and two members of the United States House of Representatives: Democrat Rahm Emanuel and Republican Sue W. Kelly.

• Dance - Notable Alumni of Sarah Lawrence's dance department include the multi-talented MacArthur Genius Grant awardee Meredith Monk and choreographer John Jasperse.

• Popular culture - Sarah Lawrence has appeared in a number of well known films. In 10 Things I Hate about You one the main characters is determined to attend Sarah Lawrence. In the film The Notebook, Rachel McAdams' character attends the institution. While trying to get two non-lesbian women to copulate, Christian Bale in American Psycho states: "C'mon - you did go to Sarah Lawrence". The 2002 film XX/XY (made by former SLC alumni Austin Chick), examines the complex relationship between three Sarah Lawrence college students, both during their time at the school and then many years later. The school has also been portrayed by such writers as J.D. Salinger, Joseph Heller, Don Delillo, Tom Wolfe, and Brett Easton Ellis, and has found mention in numerous other television shows and films. The character of Karen on the hit show Will & Grace also attended Sarah Lawrence, and she refers to it throughout the series. In Entourage, for example, Ari Gold points out that Lloyd has an art history degree from Sarah Lawrence.

Athletics

• Mascot:

Sarah Lawrence College's official mascot is the Gryphon. This mythological creature is a symbol of intelligence and strength, and is usually depicted as having the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It was chosen in the 1990s to represent the College's athletics teams after a long period of fielding sports teams without an official mascot. The athletic program is represented by the image of the gryphon.

• Philosophy:

The College's sports teams foster an atmosphere where individual and team accomplishments are intrinsically linked, thereby providing a focused arena for learning and recreational fulfillment. Students of all ability and experience levels are welcome to participate on any team, provided they attend the required practices. Involvement with a team is viewed as a challenge for excellence and an incentive for commitment. The College sponsors intercollegiate teams in crew, equestrian, men's basketball, men and women’s tennis, women’s volleyball, women’s softball and women's swimming.

Publications

The school-sponsored newspaper at Sarah Lawrence is The Phoenix. The school also promotes “Sadie Lou”, an online publication. It contains a student-run magazine, a guide to the Westchester area, and a list of student organizations. “Sarah Lawrence Library News” is a blog created by library staff.

Notes

1. SLC honored for writing program that encourages students to write, think, communicate clearly
2. Kaplan, Barbara. Becoming Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence College. 26 February, 2006 23:09 UTC .
3. Kaplan, Barbara. Becoming Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence College. 26 February, 2006 23:09 UTC .
5. 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).
6. Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
7. ' United States. United States Congress. Joint Committee. A Directory of Urban Research Study Centers. Washington: United States Congress, 1977.
8. "At a Glance: About SLC". Sarah Lawrence College. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
9. "Sarah Lawrence College Drops SAT Requirement, Saying a New Writing Test Misses the Point". The New York Times. 13 November 2003. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. Tolela Myers, Michele (11 March 2007). "The Cost of Bucking College Rankings". The Washington Post. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. "U.S. News Statement on College Rankings". U.S. News and World Report. 12 March 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. Tolela Myers, Michele (11 March 2007). "The Cost of Bucking College Rankings". The Washington Post. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. Jaschik, Scott (12 March 2007). "Would U.S. News Make Up Fake Data?". Inside Higher Ed. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. "U.S. News Statement on College Rankings". U.S. News and World Report. 12 March 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
15. Finder, Alan (20 June 2007). "Some Colleges to Drop Out of U.S. News Rankings". New York Times. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
16. "Sarah Lawrence College Endorses Annapolis Group Actions". Sarah Lawrence College.

Cappel, Constance, "Utopian Colleges," Peter Lang, 1999.

External links

• Official Website

• Former women's universities and colleges
• Liberal arts colleges
• Sarah Lawrence College
• Universities and colleges in New York
• Yonkers, New York