Mount Ida College was a
private college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
in
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...
. Its campus is now part of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...
In 2018, the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...
acquired the campus and renamed it the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst, a center for learning and professional development that facilitates connections between the UMass Amherst and industries and communities in the Greater Boston area.
[
]
Chamberlayne Junior College
Chamberlayne Junior College, was founded in 1892, as the Chamberlayne School, by Miss Catherine J. Chamberlayne.[http://findingaids.library.umass.edu/ead/mums1028] In 1932 it became a junior college. In 1988, it merged with ''Mount Ida College'', as the ''Chamberlayne School of Design and Merchandising''.
History
The Mount Ida School for Girls, once a high school, became a finishing school
A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects the fact that it follows ordinary school and is intended to complete a young woman's ...
and was founded in 1899 by George Franklin Jewett, and was named after the hill on which it was located in Newton Corner, Massachusetts.
After encountering severe financial difficulties, it was forced to close during the Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, but was purchased by William Fitts Carlson in 1939 and relocated to its present location in the Oak Hill section of Newton.
The first junior college
A junior college is a type of post-secondary institution that offers vocational and academic training that is designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations or support roles in professions such as engineering, a ...
level courses were offered at Mount Ida in the mid-1900s, and the school was officially re-branded as a junior college in 1961. It was subsequently granted the ability to award associate degree
An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree ...
s with the first being awarded in 1967.
The school was later renamed as Mount Ida Junior College, and became a co-educational
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...
institution in 1972 which was a logical step since many Vietnam veterans were attending college in the 1970s thanks to the G.I. Bill
The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...
. Several Boston-based institutions also merged with Mount Ida on the Newton campus: Chamberlayne Junior College (1988), New England Institute of Funeral Service Education (1989), and Coyne Electrical and Technical School.[
The Senior College division awarding ]bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
s began In 1982. Massachusetts allowed Mount Ida to grant three bachelor's degrees as Mount Ida filed to drop the "Junior" part of the college name. The Senior Degree program was fully accredited in 1984, with an emphasis on career and professional education.[ In 2012, Barry Brown was appointed president of the college.
UMass Amherst announced plans to acquire the Newton campus in April 2018. Classes ended after the commencement in the spring of 2018 and students of the small school were offered automatic admission to UMass Dartmouth (though that university did not have all of the same academic programs).] Newbury College (which itself closed in 2019) announced that it would grant full transfer credit to Mount Ida students and would help them finish their degrees. Keene State College
Keene State College is a Public college, public Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Keene, New Hampshire. It is part of the University System of New Hampshire. Founded in 1909 as a teacher's college (originally, Ke ...
and Worcester State University
Worcester State University (WSU) is a public university in Worcester, Massachusetts. The fourth largest of the Commonwealth’s nine Universities, WSU enrolls over 4800 undergraduates and nearly 900 graduate students in more than 80 undergradu ...
also invited students to their campuses and committed to review applications for immediate acceptance and full credit transfer.
Campus
Located in Newton, Massachusetts, Mount Ida College was located on a 72-acre campus that once belonged to William Sumner Appleton (1840–1903), father of William Sumner Appleton Jr. The estate was transferred to Robert Gould Shaw II after Appleton's death. Shaw commissioned Boston architect James Lovell Little Junior to build a carriage house and horse stable in 1910; this building was subsequently refurbished and was known as Holbrook Hall. The building known as Shaw Hall, which became the nucleus for the Mount Ida campus, was also commissioned by Shaw and designed by Little in 1912. The building known as Hallden Academic Support Center was also constructed in 1912, presumably by Little.
The Shaw fortune collapsed during the Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, and Dr. Carlson purchased the vacant and decaying Shaw Estate and reopened Mount Ida Junior College in 1939. In 1956, a two-story dormitory designed by architect Albert C. Rugo was added to Shaw Hall. Rugo designed several other buildings that were added to the complex in the 1950s and 1960s.[
]
Academics
Mount Ida College consisted of four schools (which included some prominent stand-alone schools prior to merger)
* The School of Applied Sciences
** The New England Institute of Mortuary Science
* The School of Design
* The School of Business
* The School of Social Sciences and Humanities
The Gallery at Mount Ida College held exhibitions of regional, national, and international fine art
In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...
ists and designers. The Gallery had featured works in photography
Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
, painting
Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
, sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
, video
Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
, and a variety of other art forms. The Gallery opened in 1999, allowing artists and designers to have a showcase for traditional and alternative media works as an innovative part of the Mount Ida College Learning Community.
Athletics
Mount Ida's athletes competed as the Mustangs in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference in NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...
Division III varsity sports, as well as IHSA equestrian competition. Three teams captured North Atlantic Conference (NAC) championships: the 1999, 2000 men's soccer team, the 2002 women's volleyball team, and the 2007 men's lacrosse team. The Mount Ida Mustangs football team competed from 1999 to 2017, compiling an all-time record of 76–119 in 19 seasons and sharing the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) championship in 2012.
Notable alumni
* Enid A. Haupt, publisher and philanthropist
* Wishnutama Kusubandio, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of The Republic of Indonesia from 2019 to 2020
* Thomas Menino, Mayor of Boston
The mayor of Boston is the head of the municipal government in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Boston has a mayor–council government. Boston's mayoral elections are nonpartisan (as are all municipal elections in Boston), and elect a m ...
from 1993 to 2014, earned his associate degree in 1963 from Chamberlayne Junior College, which later became part of Mount Ida College
* Gary Vaynerchuk, serial entrepreneur and author
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Official website
(archived)
Mount Ida Closure
at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education
Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) is a state agency of Massachusetts overseeing tertiary education. Its headquarters is in One Ashburton Place in Boston. Its Office of Student Financial Assistance is in Malden, Massachusetts, Malde ...
{{Authority control
1899 establishments in Massachusetts
2018 disestablishments in Massachusetts
Defunct private universities and colleges in Massachusetts
Educational institutions disestablished in 2018
Liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts
Universities and colleges established in 1899
Universities and colleges in Newton, Massachusetts