So what small residential liberal arts college has been a question (or answer) on the hit game show Jeopardy! twelve times to date? That would be Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, a mere 15 miles north of Manhattan. Sarah Lawrence is one of several New York institutions looking to move their accreditation to NECHE and I was delighted to make an initial visit to SLC in early May. It was my good fortune to visit on a day when the sun was shining, temperatures reached eighty degrees, and campus lawns were filled with students enjoying what felt like a summer day.
From its inception in 1926, Sarah Lawrence has been a pioneer in innovative educational programs and that tradition continues today. While there are more than fifty academic subject areas in the arts and sciences, there are no majors at SLC. The curriculum is open, meaning each student is free to fulfill graduation requirements in ways that meet his or her interests, and all students graduate with the same degree: a Bachelor of Arts in the Liberal Arts.
Most courses are five credits rather than the traditional three or four, and that credit-load reflects work done in small, discussion-based seminars and independent (frequently cross-disciplinary) scholarly or artistic work under the supervision of a faculty member. Accordingly, a distinguishing characteristic of the faculty is helping students to see connections, think across disciplinary lines, and place issues within a larger cultural context.
With 1,400 undergraduate students and another several hundred graduate students, SLC is a close-knit and collegial community. Originally started as a women’s college, it went fully coed more than fifty years ago. Today, the sciences are clearly thriving at the college. One of Sarah Lawrence’s venerable graduate programs is the Joan H. Marks Graduate Program in Human Genetics, established in 1969 as the first of its kind in the country and it remains the largest graduate program in genetic counseling in the world. SLC has recently launched a partnership with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine to offer a Master’s Program in Genome Health Analysis.
Yet the arts are also a prominent part of the campus culture–the new campus center carries the name of one of SLC’s more famous graduates in the field of television media, Barbara Walters. Other renowned SLC’s alums in the performing arts include J.J. Abrams, Julianna Margulies, and Meredith Monk.
Outside the classroom, the Sarah Lawrence Gryphons field 15 athletic teams, nearly all NCAA Division III, and I noticed quite a few championship banners in the beautiful athletic complex. Students also have many opportunities to study abroad, including a remarkable long-standing Semester in Havana and a year-long program at Oxford University studying entirely with Oxford’s renowned faculty.
Sarah Lawrence College holds a special place in American higher education and we look forward to welcoming this esteemed institution to the NECHE family.