Stonehill College is a private Catholic college in

Easton, Massachusetts Easton is a New England town, town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,058 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Greater Boston area. Easton is governed by an elected Select Board. Town meeting, Open Town Meeti ...

, United States. It was founded in 1948 by the

Congregation of Holy Cross The Congregation of Holy Cross (), abbreviated CSC, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men founded in 1837 by Basil Moreau, in Le Mans, France. Moreau also founded the Marianites of Holy Cross for women, n ...

and is located on the original estate of Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr., with 29 buildings that complement the original Georgian-style Ames mansion. Stonehill's engineering majors spend their last four semesters of undergraduate education at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

, Stonehill's sister institution and another Holy Cross school.

History

In the autumn of 1934, the Holy Cross Fathers in North Dartmouth began to look for new quarters because of increasing seminary enrollment. The current Stonehill campus was purchased from Mrs. Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr. on October 17, 1935. The initial purchase included and the original Ames mansion; the congregation purchased the remaining from Mrs. Cutler two years later. Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr. was the great-grandson of Oliver Ames Sr., who came to Easton in 1803 and established the Ames Shovel Company. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts authorized the Congregation of Holy Cross to establish Stonehill College on the Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr. estate on June 30, 1948. In September of that year the college enrolled 134 men as the first class. Classes were held in the mansion and in the Ames Gym. The first building built by the college was the Science Building which opened in February 1949. In 1974, the building was renovated and renamed the Tracy Science Building in honor of David Tracy, a former Stonehill advisor and trustee. After the opening of the Shields Science Center in 2009, the building was converted to be used by university administration and was renamed Merkert-Tracy Hall. In June 2017, the college announced that W.B. Mason would be donating $10 million to open the Leo J. Meehan School of Business. The school is named after alumnus and W.B. Mason CEO Leo Meehan, and accommodates programs in accounting, finance, international business, management, marketing, economics, and healthcare administration. The first issue of the college newspaper, ''The Summit'', was published on November 3, 1949. In the fall of 1951, the college decided to become a coeducational organization and enrolled 19 women. The first class graduated from Stonehill on the first Sunday of June 1952 and consisted of 73 men.

Academics

Through the May School of Arts and Sciences and the Meehan School of Business, Stonehill awards on the

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

level the B.A., B.S., and BSBA They have also added several master's degree programs. The Integrated Marketing Communications master's program was launched during the 2017–2018 school year, a Special Education (K-8) program was launched in May 2019, and a Data Analytics program launched in fall of 2020. Stonehill offers 47

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

programs, the opportunity to double major or participate in one of the college's 51 minor programs. Stonehill College is

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by the

New England Commission of Higher Education The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evaluation and accreditation of public and private universities and colleges in the United States and othe ...

MacPhaidin Library

The MacPhaidin Library, named in honor of Stonehill College's eighth president, Bartley MacPhaidin, was constructed in 1997 and opened in May 1998. The MacPhaidin Library is three stories high and covers . It houses a collection of 250,000 print volumes, more than 100 full-text databases and indexes, and two computer labs. Various works of local art and history are on display at the library as well as a large collection of historical Irish documents and literature.

Student life

Campus media

* ''The Summit'': Bi-weekly newspaper (student-run). * ''Rolling Stonehill'': Culture magazine (student-run). * '' WSHL-FM'': Radio station (student-run). * ''Channel 70'': Stonehill's TV station.

Housing

Stonehill provides guaranteed four years of housing to students admitted as residential students. The housing is set up as freshman/sophomore and junior/senior. O'Hara Hall and The Holy Cross Center are designated freshman traditional-style dorms. Both freshmen and sophomores have the chance to live in Boland Hall, Corr Hall, and Villa Theresa Hall. The Pilgrim Heights, the O'Hara Village and the Pilgrim Heights Village suite-style housing is primarily for sophomores. Juniors and seniors all live in suite-style housing in the Colonial ("Junior") Courts, Commonwealth ("Senior") Courts, Pilgrim Heights (sophomores & juniors), Notre Dame du Lac, and Bogan (New) Hall.

Athletics

The Athletic Department fields 21 competitive

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 I intercollegiate varsity sports. The College's combination of academic and athletic success has garnered Stonehill the #4 ranking in the country among NCAA Division II schools in the Collegiate Power Rankings that are published by the National College Scouting Association. Furthermore, Stonehill finished 65th in the overall NCSA Top 100 Power Rankings across all three NCAA divisions. On April 5, 2022, Stonehill announced a transition to Div. I sports, with most of the teams joining the

Northeast Conference The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Foo ...

, and men's ice hockey becoming a Div I independent for the 2022–2023 season.
Stonehill College official website. The Sally Blair Ames Sports Complex is home to the college staff that sponsors fourteen intercollegiate club teams featuring ultimate frisbee, rugby, lacrosse and

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

as well as an extensive intramural sports program offering

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

Floor Hockey Floor hockey is a broad term for several indoor floor game codes which involve two teams using a stick and type of ball or disk. Disks are either open or closed but both designs are usually referred to as "pucks". These games are played either on ...

and

Flag Football Flag football is a variant of gridiron football (American football or Canadian football depending on location) where, instead of Tackle (football move)#Gridiron football, tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or ...

. W.B. Mason Stadium is a 2,400-seat, multipurpose sports stadium. Opened in 2005 at a cost of $4 million, it is the home of Skyhawk football, lacrosse, field hockey, and track & field.Paul Harber
"Stonehill Ready to Unveil New Athletic Facility"
''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'', September 1, 2005. W.B. Mason, an office-supplies dealer based in nearby

Brockton, Massachusetts Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population was 105,643 at the 2020 United States census. Along with Plymouth, Massachusetts, Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, ...

, and its alumni employees contributed $1.5 million toward the project.W.B. Mason Stadium
Stonehill College official website.

Notable alumni

References

External links

*
Stonehill athletics website
{{authority control Universities and colleges in Bristol County, Massachusetts Universities and colleges established in 1948 Holy Cross universities and colleges Saint Edward's University 1948 establishments in Massachusetts Private universities and colleges in Massachusetts