Seven Sister Colleges

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 29. Chapters: Barnard College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Vassar College, Bryn Mawr College, Wellesley College, Seven Sisters, Radcliffe College. Excerpt: Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters. Smith is also a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley institutions: Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst In 2010, U.S. News & World Report ranked it 14th in Best Liberal Arts Colleges. Notable Alumnae include: Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Julia Child, Madeleine L'Engle, Margaret Mitchell, Sylvia Plath, and Yolanda King. The first ever Women's Basketball game was played at Smith College in 1892. The college was chartered in 1871 by a bequest of Sophia Smith and opened its doors in 1875 with 14 students and six faculty. When she inherited, at age 65, a fortune from her father, Smith decided that leaving her inheritance to found a women's college was the best way for her to fulfill the moral obligation she expressed in her will: "I hereby make the following provisions for the establishment and maintenance of an Institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men." By 1915-16 the student enrollment was 1,724 and the faculty numbered 163. Today, with some 2,600 undergraduates on campus, and 250 students studying elsewhere, Smith is the largest privately endowed college for women in the country. The campus was planned and planted in the 1890s as a botanical garden and arboretum, designed by Frederick Law Olmste...