Vassar turns 100

While today marks the start of the College's Sesquicentennial Celebration, the College is by no means a stranger to hosting birthday celebrations. With much anticipation, excitement and its share of controversy, the College its community have marked Vassar's significant anniversaries since its 1861 inception. The celebration of the College's centennial was by no means an exception.

Much like today's celebration, preparation and expectation began to build in the semester preceding the official start of the centennial. "There are one hundred years of tradition behind you as you enter Vassar this fall," The Miscellany News wrote to the Class of 1964 in the summer of 1960. "You, the Class of 1964," the editorial board continued, "as you begin the second hundred years of Vassar education, are our future." The pressure on the Class of 1964 was great, then, as they entered through Main Gate.

This pressure, though, was tempered by the grand celebration planned for the winter and spring of 1961. Dubbed "the Magnificent Enterprise" in a tip of the hat to Matthew Vassar's vision of his college, the celebration aimed at recounting Vassar's past and, as the editors of The Miscellany showed, a dedication to continuing Vassar's commitment to academic excellence.

In this vein, the theme of the Centennial drew itself from lines John Milton's "Areopagitica," reading, "The light which we have gain'd, was giv'n us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things." And with this, the Centennial Committee, headed by Centennial Director George Dowell, planned a celebration that combined historical commemoration and educational development.

To the first of these two ends, the College peppered the Spring 1961 schedule with smaller festive events. Members of the senior class, for example, came together in celebration of a Centennial Birthday Party at which students listened to a new version of the College's alma mater with Matthew Vassar himself. The founder, according to one Miscellany article, "deciding that he'd missed out on enough centennial fun…returned to life at 10 p.m."

These events were complemented by February's Mid-19th Century Festival, which was replete with an exhibit of the artwork of former trustee Samuel F.B. Morse, remembrances of the Civil War and lectures about the time period. Vassar students contributed short sketches that detailed Vassar's history as preludes.

If the pages of The Miscellany News are any to judge by, students accepted with alacrity the spirit of the celebration. In a student-led complement to Mid-19th Century Festival, for example, each dorm selected a "theme" from the 19th century by which to decorate their houses. These selections ranged from Main House's emulation of Alaska in the theme "Seward's Folly" to Cushing House's portrayal of the novel Ivanhoe. Others, though, were much more problematic by today's standards, such as Ferry House's depiction of "One Hundred Years of Diplomatic Relations with Japan," in which students dressed as "geisha girls and Japanese people" and their dates dressed as diplomats or sailors. Additionally, Strong House, picking up the theme of the Wild West, "whoop[ed] it up" by inviting students to dress as Apache Indians.

As the year progressed, Vassar reached beyond its walls to celebrate with the local Poughkeepsie community, culminating in the Community Day held on May 6, 1961. On that day, Poughkeepsie proclaimed itself "the city of Vassar," and residents donated $29,550 to the College, which was subsequently used to fund scholarships. The day was met with success and appreciation from The Miscellany's editors, and in one of their final editorials of the academic year, proclaimed, "We are proud to be a part of Poughkeepsie."

To encourage Vassar's commitment to furthering their educational goals, the College hosted a number of conferences: one in November of 1960 dedicated to Science and Society and a latter international conference held in March on 1961.

At the international conference, the College invited "outstanding women" from around the globe to participate in a weeklong symposium. The conference's theme, "Emerging Values and New Direction of Present Day Society," brought together women such as Barbara Ward, then assistant editor of The Economist, Alva Myrdal, the Swedish Ambassador to India, Lakshmi Menon, a past president of the All India Women's Conference. The keynote address of the conference marked the growing interdependence of nations and the subsequent effects on culture and education.

Celebration of the centennial also brought academic change to the College. In April of the centennial year, Vassar College announced the creation on a new department: the Independent Study Department. The product of much discussion belonging to earlier years, the new program of study would begin officially in the Fall 1961.

Finally, on June 10, 1861, Vassar alumnae, more than 6,000 plus their husbands, returned to the campus for a class parade "led by the world famous horse and carriage team of Anheuser-Busch…with a huge keg of beer on the top of the carriage," as reported by The Miscellany. Much like an extended Founder's Day, the reunion included free beer and a picnic while celebrating Matthew Vassar's collegiate ambitions.

While celebration pervaded the centennial year, this is not to say that the events were free from dissent. From the get-go, students sought larger capacities through which to contribute. At the original unveiling of the Centennial Celebration, the editors of The Miscellany News criticized the planners' focus on non-students' contributions to the College. "In seeking to represent one hundred years of Vassar life," the editors opined in October 1960, "the committee has neglected another resource that would bring added richness and scope to the Centennial Celebration—the student talents." Moreover, the scheduling of the international conference for the weeks of Spring Break hindered many students' ability to attend. The Student Centennial Committee responded in kind, though, and worked with the student body to include them more readily.

The Mid-Century Festival, too, set off a firestorm, as The Miscellany's criticism of portions of the event raised questions of the paper's coverage and sparked defense and additional critiques. Then, as with today, there were additionally questions of how the College was funding such an elaborate gala, and some disliked the amount of time and money poured into the event.

The purpose of the Centennial Celebration remained clear, though: The College community, even in their critiques of the celebration, embraced the call to remember and carry forth Matthew Vassar's vision.

And while the Vassar community anticipated great change within the next 100 years of Vassar's history, much change has already occurred in the first 50. Coeducation, for example, arrived only eight years after the centennial and with it brought arguably the largest change the College has undergone.

Despite these changes, as we reach the sesquicentennial, the advice of the 1960-1961 editorial board of The Miscellany on the eve of the centennial still rings true. To the Class of 1964 they wrote that the start of Vassar's second hundred years, "should remind you that generations of women have preceded you here and that generations will follow you. Temper your pride at becoming part of a great tradition with the humbling realization that you are only a part of it, molders of it to a certain degree, responsible to it in great measure." So, too, should the sesquicentennial remind.