Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was awarded Honorary Degrees by the Wheaton College (Massachusetts) (1997)

Former names: Wheaton Female Seminary (1834–1912)
Motto: "That They May Have Life and Have it Abundantly"
Type: Private liberal arts college
Established: 1834; 191 years ago as a female seminary, 1912 chartered as a four-year women's college
Endowment: $272.8 million (2024)
Academic staff: 140
Students: 1,669 (fall 2020)
Nickname: Lyons
Website: https://www.wheatoncollege.edu

A Seal of Wheaton College (Massachusetts) in USA

Wheaton College is a private liberal arts college in Norton, Massachusetts. Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a female seminary. The trustees officially changed the name of the Wheaton Female Seminary to Wheaton College in 1912 after receiving a college charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It remained one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States until men began to be admitted in 1988. It enrolls 1,669 undergraduate students.

 

History

In 1834, Eliza Wheaton Strong, the daughter of Laban Wheaton, died at the age of thirty-nine. Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton, his daughter-in-law and a founder of the Trinitarian Congregational Church of Norton, persuaded him to memorialize his daughter by founding a female seminary.

The family called upon noted women's educator Mary Lyon for assistance in establishing the seminary. Lyon created the first curriculum with the goal that it be equal in quality to those of men's colleges. She also provided the first principal, Eunice Caldwell. Wheaton Female Seminary opened in Norton, Massachusetts on 22 April 1835, with 50 students and three teachers.

Lyon and Caldwell left Wheaton to open Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 (now Mount Holyoke College). After their departure, Wheaton endured a period of fluctuating enrollment and frequent changes in leadership until 1850, when Caroline Cutler Metcalf was recruited as the new principal. Metcalf made the hiring of outstanding faculty her top priority, bringing in educators who encouraged students to discuss ideas rather than to memorize facts. The most notable additions to the faculty were Lucy Larcom, who introduced the study of English Literature and founded the student literary magazine The Rushlight; and Mary Jane Cragin, who used innovative techniques to teach geometry and made mathematics the favorite study of many students.

Metcalf retired in 1876. A. Ellen Stanton, a teacher of French since 1871, served as principal from 1880 to 1897. She led the seminary during a difficult time, when it faced competition from increasing numbers of public high schools and colleges granting bachelor's degrees to women.

In 1897, at the suggestion of Eliza Baylies Wheaton, the trustees hired Samuel Valentine Cole as the seminary's first male president. Preparing to seek a charter as a four-year college, Cole began a program of revitalization that included expanding and strengthening the curriculum, increasing the number and quality of the faculty, and adding six new buildings.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts granted Wheaton a college charter in 1912, and the trustees changed the name of the school to Wheaton College. The Student Government Association was organized to represent the "consensus of opinion of the whole student body", and to encourage individual responsibility, integrity, and self-government. Wheaton received authorization to establish a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1932, twenty years after achieving college status.

Cole died unexpectedly in 1925 after a brief illness. During his career as president, Cole oversaw the expansion of the campus from three to 27 buildings, the growth of enrollment from 50 to 414, and the establishment of an endowment. On the campus, Cole Memorial Chapel is named after him. Its approximate geographical coordinates are: 41°58′2.01″N 71°11′3.51″W.

John Edgar Park, who became president in 1926, continued Cole's building program, and saw the college through the Great Depression, the celebration of its centennial in 1935 and World War II. He retired in 1944, and was succeeded by Dartmouth College Professor of History Alexander Howard Meneely. During his tenure, the trustees voted to expand the size of the college from 525 to 800 to 1000 students, and construction of "new campus" began in 1957.

Meneely died in 1961 after a long illness and was succeeded in 1962 by William C.H. Prentice, a psychology professor and administrator at Swarthmore College. In the early 1960s, Wheaton successfully completed its first endowment campaign. The development of new campus continued, and student enrollment grew to 1,200. Wheaton students and faculty joined in nationwide campus protests against United States actions in Indochina in 1970.

In 1975, Wheaton inaugurated its first woman president, Alice Frey Emerson, dean of students at the University of Pennsylvania. During her tenure, Wheaton achieved national recognition as a pioneer in the development of a gender-balanced curriculum. Emerson would go on to receive the Valeria Knapp Award from The College Club of Boston in 1987 for establishing the Global Awareness Program at Wheaton College. Wheaton celebrated its Sesquicentennial in 1984/85 with a year-long series of symposia, concerts, dance performances, art and history exhibits, and an endowment and capital campaign. In 1987, the trustees voted to admit men to Wheaton. The first coeducational class was enrolled in September 1988.

Dale Rogers Marshall, Academic Dean at Wellesley College, was inaugurated as Wheaton's sixth president in 1992. She led the college in "The Campaign for Wheaton", to build endowed and current funds for faculty development, student scholarships, and academic programs and facilities. Enrollment growth encouraged the construction of the first new residence halls since 1964 (Gebbie, Keefe and Beard residence halls), the improvement of classroom buildings and the renovation and expansion of the college's arts' facilities.

Wheaton's Board of Trustees appointed Ronald A. Crutcher as the seventh president of the college on March 23, 2004. Crutcher came to Wheaton from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of music. During his tenure, he ran the most successful funding campaigns in Wheaton's history, funding the new $37M Mars Science Center, more than $53M in new scholarship endowments, as well as new athletic facilities, faculty-mentored research, and career services.

Dennis M. Hanno was appointed as the eighth president in 2014 and served until 2021. Hanno accentuated Wheaton's emphasis on diversity and a student-centered approach to education. He advocated and implemented programs to apply liberal arts teachings to social entrepreneurship and making the world a better place. One of his initiatives offers a full scholarship to one refugee student each year, with preference for students from countries subject to immigration restrictions proposed by Donald Trump in 2016.

Wheaton's current president is Michaele Whelan.

Presidents
The following is a list of Wheaton College presidents with the years of their presidential tenures.

Samuel Valentine Cole (1912–1925)
George Thomas Smart, Acting President (1925–1926)
John Edgar Park (1926–1944)
A. Howard Meneely (1944–1961)
Elizabeth Stoffregen May, Acting President (1961–1962)
William Courtney Hamilton Prentice (1962–1975)
Alice Frey Emerson (1975–1991)
Hannah Goldberg, Acting President (1991–1992)
Dale Rogers Marshall (1992–2004)
Ronald Crutcher (2004–2014)
Dennis M. Hanno (2014–2021)
Michaele Whelan (2022–present)

 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Links

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Loveginsburg
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Loveginsburg
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joanruthbaderginsburg

This page was created by the Independent Director of the Supreme Court of the United States, Abraham Lincoln Ginsburg. (Reference 28 U.S. Code §608 - Seal, Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression. See 37 C.F.R. 201.2(a)(3). Contact Email: i.love.ruth.bader.ginsburg@gmail.com)