Hartford College for Women

Last updated
Hartford College for Women
HCWLogo.png
MottoSibi constantem esse (To make them steady)
Type Liberal arts women's college
Active1933–2003
Endowment The father of Professor and author Oliver Butterworth bought the 13 acres property in the west end of Hartford and donated it to the college and maintained the college until his death in the early 1980s. He was a distinguished philanthropist who was interested in assuring that the women of the Greater Hartford area had the opportunity to obtain a higher education. It was Mr. Butterworth who made Hartford College for Women possible. When Mr. Butterworth died in the early 1980s, a cherry tree was planted in the grounds of the property in his memory. Mr. Butterworth was an elegant, highly educated man and very wealthy but he was not pretentious, he was humble. Instead of building a statue in his honor, a cherry tree was planted.
Dean Mrs. Davis
Academic staff
Oliver Butterworth, English Professor; Alfredo Gomez Gil, Spanish Professor, Rudolph E. Haffner, Biology Professor, Truda Kushman – Dance Instructor.
Location
Hartford
,
Connecticut
,
USA
Campus13 acres (53,000 m2)
Nickname HCW

The Hartford College for Women (or HCW) was a two-year private college for women located in Hartford, Connecticut. It was opened in 1933, became a constituent college of the University of Hartford (UHart) in 1991, and closed in 2003.

Contents

History

1933 – 1938: The "noble experiment"

HCW was founded as the Hartford Junior College, a satellite branch of Mount Holyoke College, located about 40 miles (64 km) north in South Hadley, Massachusetts. At the time, higher education opportunities for women living in the Greater Hartford area were extremely limited, requiring most young women to move away for four years in order to obtain an education. The Hartford Young Women's Christian Association's Education Committee, led by Bess Graham Frazier, approached Trinity College, a men's college in Hartford, and asked them to admit women. Remsen Ogilby, the president of Trinity, refused the offer, instead asking President Mary E. Woolley of Mount Holyoke if she would assist.

Since Mount Holyoke itself was facing difficulty attracting new students due to the Great Depression and competition from new women's colleges opening across the country, Woolley agreed to start a junior college branch in Hartford. Faculty members from Mount Holyoke commuted to Hartford to teach first-year liberal arts coursework. Additional faculty support came from retired Mount Holyoke professors living in the Hartford area and some professors from Trinity, which was at the time the only accredited college in the area. After completing their first year at Hartford Junior College, most students transferred to other institutions, especially Mount Holyoke, which greatly benefited the senior college's enrollment.

Known as Mount Holyoke's "noble experiment," the program was troubled from the beginning by the problems of long-distance administration. In 1938, Mount Holyoke – which, at that point, had begun to experience a rise in its enrollment – withdrew its affiliation, leaving Hartford Junior College as its own independent institution.

The college reorganized itself in 1939, with Howell Cheney, a Hartford businessman, as chairman of its Board of Trustees. The college retained its junior college mission but added more liberal arts programs, including more offerings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts. The college moved out of the YWCA and into a house on Highland Street, where it would remain for almost two decades.

1939 – 1980s: Reorganization and development

Following the end of the Great Depression, more female students were able to pursue higher education, and the student body of the college, now the Hartford College for Women, grew dramatically as a result. Under the 30-year tenure of president Laura A. Johnson, the college expanded its programs to offer 2-year [Associate of Arts] degrees and became a national leader in women's education. She believed in operating HCW as a place for "women who [wanted] to learn and teachers who [loved] to teach," and continued that promote the college that way during the coeducation movement of the 1960s.

In 1955, the college was one of several area colleges approached by the Hartt School of Music, Hillyer College, and the Hartford Art School about a proposed merger. Along with Trinity College and the Hartford School of Music, HCW declined the offer. However, the Council of Hartford Community Colleges (CHCC), formed in 1956 in order to promote the idea of a merge, continued to consider it a priority to merge HCW into the new federation, which in 1957 culminated in the University of Hartford. The CHCC continued to offer the proposal of a merger to HCW even after the founding of the University.

Ignoring the offers to merge, HCW continued as an independent women's college. In 1958, the college purchased the Seaverns estate on Asylum Avenue and relocated the institution to its new wealthy neighborhood. In the early 1960s, HCW began admitting Laura Johnson Scholars, or women who were returning to (or entering) college beyond the traditional age. In 1968, the Career Counseling Center opened, becoming one of the first career counseling centers for women in the United States.

Resisting offers to merge once again in 1975 and 1976, HCW focused on offering more services to attract new students. By offering additional services such as the Career Counseling Center and the Entrepreneurial Center, founded in 1985, the college was able to continue attracting students even as other women's colleges were forced to close due to declining enrollment.

1991 – 2003: Merger to closing

By the early 1990s, the college was, like many women's colleges, encountering financial difficulties and decreasing enrollment. Although it had resisted offers to merge several times in the past, HCW finally merged into the University of Hartford in 1991, becoming the last of its constituent colleges to do so.

Although it merged into a coeducational university, giving students access to all of the programs and services offered by UHart, HCW maintained its single-sex status and separate campus. It also continued to develop and sustain new programs, including the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, founded in 1994, and the Academic Express program for non-traditional students, founded in 1997. HCW for the first time began to offer B.A. degrees—in Women’s Studies and Legal Studies only.

In 2003, the University of Hartford administration announced, to the surprise of most students and faculty, that it would be closing the Hartford College for Women and transitioning all of its degree programs into the College of Arts and Sciences. The news was met with resistance from the HCW community, but the protests were unsuccessful and the college graduated its last class the next spring. Several of the college's programs, including the Career Counseling Center (now the Center for Professional Development) and the Entrepreneurial Center (how part of the CPD), were revamped to cover the entire university and made coeducational.

Academics and teaching

As a liberal arts college, HCW offered courses of study in the humanities, arts, sciences, social sciences, and related fields. Once the college merged into the University of Hartford, students were able to enroll in majors offered through the other constituent colleges, including business and architecture. Students who wished to enroll in HCW programs, however, could only do so if they were female.

HCW was one of the first colleges in the country to offer a major in Women's Studies. The program was cited as one of the most progressive programs in the field by the New England Women's Studies Association due to its special emphasis on the relationship between gender, race, and class.

As the smallest of UHart's colleges, HCW had only five full-time faculty members at the time of its closing, each of whom had joint appointments through the College of Arts and Sciences. As a result, many courses for HCW students were taught by professors from outside the college. The college also had nineteen additional staff members, most of whom worked for the Career Counseling Center or the Entrepreneurial Center.

Campus

HCW classes were originally held at the Hartford branch of the YWCA, located on the current site of the XL Center. After its stint on Highland Street, the college moved to Hartford's more affluent and wooded West End in 1958, where it settled on a 13-acre (53,000 m2) campus near the site of the University of Connecticut School of Law. Several of the Georgian buildings on campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Legacy

Today, the campus serves as the primary graduate student housing option for University of Hartford. In 2006, The University of Hartford founded the Women's Advancement Initiative which serves female students by helping them develop academic and leadership skills, in memory of the college. The University in addition continues to operate the HCW Career Counseling and Entrepreneurial studies center on the Albany Avenue campus.

Symbols

While HCW's original colors were blue and white – the same as Mount Holyoke's – they were later often replaced with UHart's red and white. Diplomas issued after the merge into UHart featured the University's seal.

The college's seal featured a temple of learning and the Latin motto Sibi constantem esse, which loosely translates into English as "To make them steady," or more accurately, "To be true to oneself."

The most recognizable symbol of HCW today is Butterworth Hall, the main building of the college visible from Asylum Avenue.

Notable alumnae

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Holyoke College</span> Private liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, U.S.

Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of historically female colleges in the Northeastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Connecticut</span> Public university in Storrs, Connecticut, U.S.

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two brothers who donated the land for the school. In 1893, the school became a public land grant college, becoming the University of Connecticut in 1939. Over the following decade, social work, nursing and graduate programs were established, while the schools of law and pharmacy were also absorbed into the university. During the 1960s, UConn Health was established for new medical and dental schools. UConn is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

The Seven Sisters are a group of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College are still women's colleges. Vassar College is currently a coeducational college and Radcliffe College was absorbed in 1999 by Harvard College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Bridgeport</span> Private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States

The University of Bridgeport is a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. In 2021, the university was purchased by Goodwin University; it retained its own name, brand, and board of trustees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quinnipiac University</span> Private university in Hamden, Connecticut, United States

Quinnipiac University is a private university in Hamden, Connecticut. The university grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. It also hosts the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Hartford</span> Private university in West Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.

The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its 350-acre (1.4 km2) main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trinity College (Connecticut)</span> Private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut

Trinity College is a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded as Washington College in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barber–Scotia College</span>

Barber–Scotia College is a private unaccredited historically black college in Concord, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's college</span> Undergraduate college consisting entirely or predominantly of women

Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male students to their graduate schools or in smaller numbers to undergraduate programs, but all serve a primarily female student body.

Trinity Washington University is a private Catholic university in Washington, D.C. Trinity is a comprehensive university with five schools; the undergraduate College of Arts & Sciences maintains its original mission as a liberal arts women's college, while men attend Trinity's other schools at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The university was founded as Trinity College by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1897 as the nation's first Catholic liberal arts college for women. Trinity was chartered by an Act of Congress on August 20, 1897. An elite collegian institution in its early life, the college faced declining enrollment by the 1980s. It chose to begin recruiting local underprivileged students, and became predominantly black and Hispanic. Trinity became Trinity Washington University in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chestnut Hill College</span> Catholic college in Pennsylvania, U.S

Chestnut Hill College is a private Catholic college in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The college was founded in 1924 as a women's college by the Sisters of St. Joseph. It was originally named Mount Saint Joseph College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holyoke Community College</span> Community college in Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S.

Holyoke Community College (HCC) is a public community college in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It offers associate degrees and certificate programs, as well as a transfer program for students to earn credits for transfer to other colleges. It was the first community college established in Massachusetts, as it was founded by the city's school board in 1946, while others were subsequently chartered under state jurisdiction after 1960. HCC currently offers more than 100 associate degree and certificate options, as well as adult basic education/GED programs, education and training for business and industry, and noncredit community education classes. In a 2016 report on community colleges in the United States, the Aspen Institute and Columbia University's Community College Research Center cited HCC as among 2-year community colleges with best practices for student transfers to 4 year institutions such as the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Additionally among the 15 community colleges in Massachusetts, HCC has the highest percentage of student graduates completing associate degrees and certificate programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manchester Community College (Connecticut)</span> Community College in Manchester,Connecticut US

Manchester Community College (MCC) is a public community college in Manchester, Connecticut. Founded in 1963, it is the third-oldest of the twelve community colleges governed by the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system (CSCU) and has graduated more than 23,000 students since the first class in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Long Beach City College</span> Public community college in California, United States

Long Beach City College (LBCC) is a public community college in Long Beach, California. It was established in 1927 and is divided into two campuses, the Liberal Arts Campus in Lakewood Village and the Pacific Coast Campus in central Long Beach on Pacific Coast Highway. It is the only college in the Long Beach Community College District.

The Mount Vernon Seminary and College was a private women's college in Washington, D.C. It was purchased by George Washington University in 1999, and is now known as the Mount Vernon Campus of The George Washington University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Erie College</span> College in Painesville, Ohio

Lake Erie College is a private liberal arts college in Painesville, Ohio. Founded in 1856 as a female seminary, the college converted to a coeducational institution in 1985. As of the 2016–2017 academic year, the total enrollment was 1,177 students.

The following is a timeline of women's colleges in the United States. These are institutions of higher education in the United States whose student population comprises exclusively, or almost exclusively, women. They are often liberal arts colleges. There are approximately 35 active women's colleges in the U.S. as of 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's colleges in the United States</span> Single-sex institutions of higher education

Women's colleges in the United States are private single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that only admit female students. They are often liberal arts colleges. There were approximately 26 active women's colleges in the United States in 2022, down from a peak of 281 such colleges in the 1960s.

Gregory Woodward is the sixth and current president of the University of Hartford. He was also the twenty-second president of Carthage College.

References

Coordinates: 41°46′27″N72°42′26″W / 41.7741°N 72.7071°W / 41.7741; -72.7071

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.