Fourteen first-year students got a jump on their college careers this summer as members of the Summer Immersion in the Liberal Arts program sponsored by Vassar’s Engaged Pluralism Initiative (EPI). The young men and women, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college, spent four weeks on campus taking specially designed, credit-bearing courses, learning about resources the college offers, and taking part in service-based learning in the Poughkeepsie area.
Vassar debuted an inaugural program in China this summer, partnering with a secondary school for gifted students in Beijing who took courses taught by Vassar faculty grounded in the college’s liberal arts model.
Vassar College has forged a partnership with Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health that will enable Vassar students to earn a master’s degree in public health a year after they graduate from Vassar.
During Vassar’s Fall Convocation ceremony, Lisa Collins, Professor of Art on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair and Professor of American and Africana Studies, gave the Convocation Address, and the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College bestowed awards upon six distinguished alumnae/i.
Learning that setbacks are an integral part of research, about 60 Vassar students took part in projects this summer on the auspices of the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) and Ford Scholars programs.
Debra Elmegreen, Professor of Astronomy on the Maria Mitchell Chair, has been elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr.—and Maria Mitchell herself.
Students in a Medieval and Renaissance Studies Class spent a morning hurling balls of clay at a kiddie pool, learning the workings of a medieval weapon, a trebuchet.
