Mills College

Mills College is a private women's liberal arts college located in Oakland, California, USA. It has played an important role in modern American music through its post-graduate program in experimental music.

History

Mills was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia in 1852. In 1865, missionaries Cyrus and Susan Tolman Mills purchased the seminary, and in 1871 they relocated it to a new campus in the East Bay foothills in Oakland, into a long, four-story building with a high central observatory. The mansarded structure, which provided homes for faculty and students as well as classrooms and dining halls, long was considered the most beautiful educational building in the state, and is now a California Historical Landmark (#849) and listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NPS-71000132). In 1889, Mills became the first college to grant Bachelor of Arts degrees to women west of the Mississippi River. In 1921, Mills granted its first master's degrees.

Related Topics:
Benicia - 1852 - 1865 - Susan Tolman Mills - 1871 - Mansard - California Historical Landmark - National Register of Historic Places - 1889 - Bachelor of Arts - Mississippi River - 1921 - Master's degrees

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Notable faculty members include Dean Rusk, who taught at Mills from 1934 to 1940, and composer Arthur Berger.

Related Topics:
Dean Rusk - Arthur Berger

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In 1990, with enrollment declining, trustees announced a plan to open Mills' undergraduate programs to men. Students mounted a vigorous protest in defense of its 138-year history as a women's college, attracting national news coverage and support from women's colleges across the United States. Later that same year, the trustees reversed their position and "reaffirmed Mills' commitment" to remain a single-sex undergraduate institution.

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