Hartford College for Women
Encyclopedia
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.
, located about 40 miles (64.4 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 science
s, social sciences, and art
s. The college moved out of the YWCA
and into a house on Highland Street, where it would remain for almost two decades.
, 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 Bachelor's degree
s 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 the 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 ontinued 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.
. 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.
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.
, art
s, science
s, 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.
. Several of the Georgian
buildings on campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
staff =
Dean - Mrs. Davis.
Librarian - Mrs. Newlynds.
faculty =
- Oliver Butterworth, son of the founder of Hartford College for Women, served for nearly forty years as administrator and professor of English at Hartford College for Women. His wife Miriam Butterworth was a great contributor and supporter to the college. In recognition for her dedication one of the buildings of the property was named after her.
- Alfredo Gomez Gil, Spanish Professor.* "Most of his career was done abroad. Lecturer, Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University (1965-1967) was Assistant Professor at the prestigious Hartford College for Women since 1967. In the same College gets tenure in 1970 and is since 1972 Professor, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature since 1979 and Dean of the Department of Hispanic Studies (1987-1989). Hartford College for Women was absorbed by the University of Hartford in 1991, Gómez Gil kept his chair until 1996, when he returned to Spain. In Madrid is Professor of Literature at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (1998-2002)."
- Rudolp E. Haffner, Biology and Oceonagraphy Professor. B.A., University of Maine; Ph.D., Yale University.
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.
and white
– the same as Mount Holyoke's – they were later often replaced with UHart's red
and white. Diploma
s 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."
The most recognizable symbol of HCW today is Butterworth Hall, the main building of the college visible from Asylum Avenue.
The motto of Hartford College for Women "loosely translated" 'to make them steadfast' is more correctly translated 'to be true to oneself.'
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
for women
Women's college
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...
located in Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. It was opened in 1933, became a constituent college of the University of Hartford
University of Hartford
The University of Hartford is a private, independent, nonsectarian, coeducational university located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The degree programs at the University of Hartford hold the highest levels of accreditation available in the US, including the Engineering Accreditation Commission of...
(UHart) in 1991, and closed in 2003.
1933 - 1938: The "noble experiment"
HCW was founded as the Hartford Junior College, a satellite branch of Mount Holyoke CollegeMount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
, located about 40 miles (64.4 km) north in South Hadley
South Hadley, Massachusetts
South Hadley is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,514 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. At the time, higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
opportunities for women living in the Greater Hartford
Greater Hartford
Greater Hartford is a region located in the state of Connecticut, centered on the state's capital of Hartford.Hartford's role as a focal point for the American insurance industry is known nationally. The vibrant music and arts scene defines the region's culture...
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
Young Women's Christian Association
Young Women's Christian Association or YWCA or YWCA Building or Old YWCA Building or variations may refer to:*World YWCA, the organization formerly known as Young Women's Christian Associationor it may refer to:...
's Education Committee, led by Bess Graham Frazier, approached Trinity College
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Trinity College is a private, liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut after Yale University. The college enrolls 2,300 students and has been coeducational since 1969. Trinity offers 38 majors and 26 minors, and has...
, a men's college
Men's college
Men's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions whose students are exclusively men. Many are liberal arts colleges.-United States:...
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
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and competition from new women's colleges opening across the country, Woolley agreed to start a junior college
Junior college
The term junior college refers to different educational institutions in different countries.-India:In India, most states provide schooling through 12th grade...
branch in Hartford. Faculty members from Mount Holyoke commuted to Hartford to teach first-year
Freshman
A freshman or fresher is a first-year student in secondary school, high school, or college. The term first year can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves A freshman (US) or fresher (UK, India) (or sometimes fish, freshie, fresher; slang plural frosh or freshmeat) is a...
liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
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
Accreditation
Accreditation is a process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies ; hence they are sometimes known as "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 science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
s, social sciences, and art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
s. The college moved out of the YWCA
YWCA
The YWCA USA is the United States branch of a women's membership movement that strives to create opportunities for women's growth, leadership and power in order to attain a common vision—to eliminate racism and empower women. The YWCA is a non-profit organization, the first of which was founded in...
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 DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, 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 Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s 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
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
movement of the 1960s.
In the 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 ontinued 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
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
counseling centers for women in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
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 enrollmentEducation
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. 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.
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
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the 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 humanitiesHumanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
s, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
s, 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
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
and architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. 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
Academic major
In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits....
in Women's Studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
. The program was cited as one of the most progressive programs in the field by the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
Women's Studies Association due to its special emphasis on the relationship between gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, race, and class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
.
As the smallest of UHart's colleges, HCW had only five full-time faculty members
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
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 acres (52,609.2 m²) campus near the site of the University of Connecticut School of LawUniversity of Connecticut School of Law
The University of Connecticut School of Law is the only public law school in Connecticut and one of only four in New England. The school was recently ranked forty-sixth out of the 190 American Bar Association-accredited law schools in the United States and is considered a Tier 1 school by U.S...
. Several of the Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
buildings on campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
staff =
Dean - Mrs. Davis.
Librarian - Mrs. Newlynds.
faculty =
- Oliver Butterworth, son of the founder of Hartford College for Women, served for nearly forty years as administrator and professor of English at Hartford College for Women. His wife Miriam Butterworth was a great contributor and supporter to the college. In recognition for her dedication one of the buildings of the property was named after her.
- Alfredo Gomez Gil, Spanish Professor.* "Most of his career was done abroad. Lecturer, Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University (1965-1967) was Assistant Professor at the prestigious Hartford College for Women since 1967. In the same College gets tenure in 1970 and is since 1972 Professor, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature since 1979 and Dean of the Department of Hispanic Studies (1987-1989). Hartford College for Women was absorbed by the University of Hartford in 1991, Gómez Gil kept his chair until 1996, when he returned to Spain. In Madrid is Professor of Literature at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (1998-2002)."
- Rudolp E. Haffner, Biology and Oceonagraphy Professor. B.A., University of Maine; Ph.D., Yale University.
Legacy
Today, the campus serves as a the primary graduate student housing option for University of Hartford. In 2006, UHart founded the Women's Education and Leadership Fund,(WELFund) which serves female students by helping them develop academic and leadershipLeadership
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
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 blueBlue
Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
and white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
– the same as Mount Holyoke's – they were later often replaced with UHart's red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
and white. Diploma
Diploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
s issued after the merge into UHart featured the University's seal.
The college's seal
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
featured a temple of learning and the Latin motto
Motto
A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...
Sibi constantem esse, which loosely translates into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as "To make them steady."
The most recognizable symbol of HCW today is Butterworth Hall, the main building of the college visible from Asylum Avenue.
See also
The motto of Hartford College for Women "loosely translated" 'to make them steadfast' is more correctly translated 'to be true to oneself.'