Bennington College

History

Bennington College was founded in 1932 as a women's college focusing on arts, sciences, and humanities and became co-educational in 1969. The campus itself is a modified farmer's field - the administrative building is a converted dairy cow barn - but the architecture that has been erected since the land was donated by the Jennings family at the height of the Depression has made the campus look anything but farm-like.

Related Topics:
1932 - Arts - Science - Humanities - 1969 - Campus - Dairy cow - Depression

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Public image

In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bennington gained unexpected notoriety for being the most expensive college in the country, harboring an almost anarchic student and faculty body and leading trends in art and literature. Financial mismanagement almost destroyed the institution, but reforms in the early 1990s under the Board of Trustees and President Elizabeth Coleman tightened the financial picture but also instituted faculty reforms and the abolition of assumed tenure which led to student riots, blacklisting by the American Association of University Professors, and other difficulties. Low enrollment rates were countered by huge fundraising campaigns and a re-vamping of the college's image.

Related Topics:
1970s - 1980s - Anarchic - Literature - 1990s

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By the late 1990s, Bennington College was at its most stable point in 20 years. Rising enrollment, large donations by older alumni from the first 10 classes, especially recent multi-million donations made by the Merck family (owner of Merck Pharmaceuticals), and vigorous expansion have made Bennington again a school known for its non-traditional methodologies. Bennington maintains a holistic approach to learning and participates in student-directed education.

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