Marymount Manhattan College

Marymount Manhattan College

Motto	Tua Luce Dirige
Motto in English	Direct Us By Thy Light
Type	Private, coeducational
Established	1936
Religious affiliation	formerly Roman Catholic
Endowment	$18.1 million[1]
President	Kerry Walk
Academic staff	92 full-time faculty
Undergraduates	2,069 (2017)[2]
Address	221 East 71st Street New York, NY 10021, Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Campus	Carson Hall, Nugent Building
Colors	Blue and white
Mascot	The Griffin
Website	www.mmm.edu

Marymount Manhattan College is a coeducational, independent, private college located in Manhattan, New York City. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual achievement and personal growth and by providing opportunities for career development. Enrollment consists of 2,069 undergraduates, with women making up 75% and men 25%.^[3]

History

Marymount Manhattan College

55th Street entrance

Directly from the college's website:

Marymount Manhattan College was founded in 1936 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary as a two-year women's college and a New York City extension of Marymount College, Tarrytown in Tarrytown, New York. In 1948, the College moved to its present location on 71st Street and became a four-year bachelor degree-granting college; the first class graduated from MMC in 1950. In 1961, MMC was granted an absolute charter as an independent four-year college by the Regents of the University of the State of New York.

Faithful to the vision of its founders, Marymount Manhattan has a long history of reaching out to diverse populations in need of higher education. Over the years, Marymount Manhattan's mission as an urban, independent, coeducational nonsectarian liberal arts college has expanded to include a greater variety of students, including men, nontraditional students, and students from a variety of ethnic and geographic backgrounds.^[4]

Since 1961, Marymount Manhattan has been an independent, private college open to all creeds, while noting its foundation by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. While the college no longer described itself as Catholic, the Catholic Church continued to list it in the Catholic Directory until 2005. Unaware that the college did not claim to be a Catholic school, the Cardinal Newman Society protested the college's announcement of its decision to invite then-Senator Hillary Clinton to deliver a commencement address and to confer an honorary doctoral degree upon her,^[5] due to Senator Clinton's longtime public support for abortion rights.^[5] In response to the protests and without objection by the college, it was de-listed from "The Official Catholic Directory," which identifies Catholic institutions.

In 1976, Finch College, a women's college best known as a "finishing school" for affluent young women, closed and passed its records over to the school. The school was most famous for educating Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of former US President Richard Nixon.

In 2001, the College opened the 55th Street Residence Hall, which is one of the tallest dorms in the world,^[6] with 32 floors of student housing in a 46-story building.

In 2017, just under 2,000 students were enrolled representing 48 U.S. states and 36 countries. In conjunction with its core liberal arts curriculum, Marymount Manhattan offers 30 major programs of study and over 40 minors along with pre-professional programs. It is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 2013, the school was featured in the noted industry publication Backstage as one of the top colleges in which Broadway and Tony Award-nominated actors have trained, alongside Carnegie Mellon University, Oberlin Conservatory, University of Michigan, Ithaca College, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.^[7] In July 2015 Kerry Walk was unanimously selected by the Trustees of Marymount Manhattan College as the school’s 8th president.

Distinguished Chairs

Four faculty members have been recognized by the College with its highest honor, Distinguished Chair.

• Susan Behrens (Ph.D., Brown University), author of "Understanding Language Use in the Classroom: A Linguistic Guide for College Educators" (Mulitlingual Matters) and "Grammar: A Pocket Guide" (Routledge), and co-editor of "Language in the Real World: An Introduction to Linguistics" (Routledge).
• Kathleen LeBesco (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst), author of "Revolting Bodies? The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity" (University of Massachusetts) and co-author of "Culinary Capital" (Berg Press) and "Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression" (University of California).
• Alessandra Leri (Ph.D., Princeton University), author of studies on organic geochemistry, particularly the biogeochemical cycles of halogens in terrestrial and marine environments.
• Mark Ringer (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara), author of "Electra and the Empty Urn: Metatheater and role playing in Sophocles" (University of North Carolina) and co-author of "Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi" (Amadeus Press).

Notable alumni

References

External links

• Official Marymount Manhattan Website
• Marymount Manhattan College's Internet Radio Station
• https://www.wellesley.edu/news/2015/july/node/64896

Coordinates: 40°46′7.25″N 73°57′35.2″W / 40.7686806°N 73.959778°W / 40.7686806; -73.959778