Mount Ida College
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Mount Ida College was a
private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
in
Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
. In 2018, the
University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
acquired the campus and renamed it the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst.


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 that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the education, wit ...
and was founded in 1899 by George Franklin Jewett, and was named after the hill on which it was located in
Newton Corner, Massachusetts Newton Corner is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Newton Corner borders Brighton, a neighborhood of Boston, as well as the city of Watertown, Massachusetts. Newton Corner ...
. After encountering severe financial difficulties, it was forced to close during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, 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 (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in su ...
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 is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree. The fi ...
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 t ...
institution in 1972 which was a logical step since so many Vietnam veterans were attending college in the 1970s thanks to the
G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...
. 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 Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
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 The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth or UMassD) is a public research university in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It is the southernmost campus of the University of Massachusetts system. Formerly Southeastern Massachusetts Un ...
(though that university does 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 liberal arts college in Keene, New Hampshire. It is part of the University System of New Hampshire and the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Founded in 1909 as a teacher's college (originally, Keene Norma ...
and
Worcester State University Worcester State University (WSU) is a public university in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1874 and enrolls nearly 5,500 undergraduates and over 900 graduate students. History Founded in 1874 as the Massachusetts State Normal Sch ...
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 Robert Gould Shaw II (sometimes referred to as RGS II) (June 16, 1872 – March 29, 1930) was a wealthy landowner, international polo player of the Myopia Hunt Club and socialite of the leisure class in the greater Boston area of Massachusetts. He ...
after Appleton's death. Shaw commissioned Boston architect
James Lovell Little Junior James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
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 (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, 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: * The School of Applied Sciences * 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 is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
ists and designers. The Gallery had featured works in
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable 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 employed ...
,
painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
,
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 electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
, 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 The Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. History Chronological timeline * 1995 - In 1995, the Great Northeast Athletic Co ...
in
NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...
varsity sports, as well as IHSA
equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: *Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes in ...
competition. Three teams captured
North Atlantic Conference The North Atlantic Conference (NAC) is an athletic conference, affiliated with the NCAA ’s Division III, consisting primarily of small liberal arts colleges in the Northern New England states of Maine and Vermont, as well as New York. The conf ...
(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 compiled an all-time record of 76–119 in 19 seasons and sharing the
Eastern Collegiate Football Conference The Eastern Collegiate Football Conference is a football-only intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Founded in 2009, it combines six schools spread across the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York ...
(ECFC) championship in 2012.


Notable alumni

*
Tansu Çiller Tansu Çiller (; born 24 May 1946) is a Turkish academic, economist and politician who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She is Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. As the leader of the True Path P ...
, Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996 *
Enid A. Haupt Enid Haupt ( Annenberg, formerly Bensinger; May 13, 1906 – October 25, 2005) was an American publisher and philanthropist whose gifts supported horticulture, the arts, architectural and historic preservation, and cancer research. She has been de ...
, publisher and philanthropist * Wishnutama Kusubandio, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of The Republic of Indonesia from 2019 to 2020 *
Thomas Menino Thomas Michael Menino (December 27, 1942 – October 30, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 53rd mayor of Boston, from 1993 to 2014. He was the city's longest-serving mayor. He was elected mayor in 1993 after first serving three ...
,
Mayor of Boston The mayor of Boston is the head of the municipal government in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has a mayor–council government. Boston's mayoral elections are nonpartisan (as are all municipal elections in Boston), and elect a mayor to a four- ...
from 1993 to 2014, earned his associate degree in 1963 from Chamberlayne Junior College, which later became part of Mount Ida College *
Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vaynerchuk (born Gennady Vaynerchuk; November 14, 1975; , ), commonly known as Gary Vee, is a Soviet-born American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Re ...
, serial entrepreneur and author


References


Further reading

* * *


External links


Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst webpage
*
Mount Ida Closure
-
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. Carlos E. Santia ...
{{Authority control 1899 establishments in Massachusetts 2018 disestablishments in Massachusetts Defunct private universities and colleges in Massachusetts Educational institutions disestablished in 2018 Educational institutions established in 1899 Liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts Universities and colleges in Newton, Massachusetts