Mills College at Northeastern University


Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in 1871 and became the second women's college west of the Rockies. In 2022, it merged with Northeastern University.

History

Mills College was initially founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in the city of Benicia in 1852 under the leadership of Mary Atkins, a graduate of Oberlin College.
In 1865, Susan Tolman Mills, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, and her husband, Cyrus Mills, bought the Young Ladies Seminary renaming it Mills Seminary. In 1871, the school was moved to its current location in Oakland, California. The school was incorporated in 1877 and was officially renamed Mills College in 1885. In 1890, after serving for decades as principal, Susan Mills became the president of the college and held the position for 19 years.
Beginning in 1906 the seminary classes were progressively eliminated. In 1920, Mills added graduate programs for women and men, granting its first master's degrees the following year.
Other notable milestones in the college's history include the presidency of renowned educator and activist Aurelia Henry Reinhardt during World War I and II, the establishment of the first laboratory school west of the Mississippi for aspiring teachers in 1926, and becoming the first women's college to offer a computer science major.

Reversal of decision to go co-ed

In 1990, Mills became the first and only women's college in the US to reverse a decision to go coed. On May 3, 1990, Mills Trustees announced that they had voted to admit male undergraduate students to Mills.
This decision led to a two-week student and staff strike, accompanied by numerous displays of non-violent protests by the students.
At one point, nearly 300 students blockaded the administrative offices and boycotted classes.
On May 18, the Trustees met again to reconsider the decision, leading to a reversal of the vote to go co-ed on the undergraduate level.

First single-sex college to formally welcome transgender students

In 2014, Mills became the first single-sex college in the U.S. to adopt an admission policy explicitly welcoming transgender students.
The policy stated that undergraduate students who were not assigned to the female sex at birth, but who self-identified as women, were welcome to apply for admission. Undergraduates who were assigned to the female sex at birth, but identified as transgender or gender fluid, also were welcome to apply for admission. The policy further clarified that undergraduate students assigned to the female sex at birth who had legally become male prior to applying were not eligible for admission to Mills. The policy ended with a statement that "once admitted, any student who completes the College's graduate requirements shall be awarded a degree," indicating that once admitted to Mills, an undergraduate female student who changed gender to male would be allowed to complete their degree at the college.

Financial difficulties and re-visioning

In 2017, Mills declared a financial emergency, citing declining student enrollment and revenues, and laid off some tenured faculty.
That September, it became the first private college in California to implement a tuition reset, announcing a 36% reduction in its undergraduate tuition beginning in fall 2018, with a goal of making a Mills education more affordable. Undergraduate tuition in the 2018–2019 academic year was $28,765 ; room and board costs were $13,448. Students are still able to receive merit scholarships and need-based financial aid in addition to the tuition reduction.
In March 2021, one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Mills announced plans to no longer be an independent, degree-granting college but rather a research institute known as the Mills Institute.
Following this announcement, multiple higher education institutions reached out to Mills to explore merger options.

Merger with Northeastern University

In June 2021, the college announced a plan to merge with Boston-based Northeastern University and become a co-ed regional campus as part of Northeastern's global university system.
Multiple lawsuits opposing the merger were filed by parties including two Mills College trustees and a substantial number of current Mills students.
The merger between Mills and Northeastern was finalized in June 2022, and the school was renamed Mills College at Northeastern University.

Academics

Its most popular majors, based on 2020–21 graduates, were:
For much of its time as an independent institution, admission to Mills was selective. As the college began encountering financial difficulties, admission became less selective, with acceptance rates hovering around the 75% mark. In preparation for the Northeastern merger, Mills stopped accepting admission applications in 2021. Post-merger, Mills College at Northeastern has announced that it planned to accept new applicants for fall 2023 enrollment.

Accreditation

Northeastern University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. Northeastern University in Oakland is approved to operate by the State of California.

Faculty

Notable Mills faculty have included modernist composers Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio; experimental and electronic music composer and performer Pauline Oliveros; contemporary artist Hung Liu; postmodern dance pioneer Anna Halprin; award-winning scholar, filmmaker and activist Susan Stryker; book artist Julie Chen; visual artist and author Ajuan Mance; choreographer and performer Molissa Fenley; experimental musicians/composers/performers Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell and James Fei; young adult author Kathryn Reiss; poet and editor Juliana Spahr; computer scientist Ellen Spertus; and artist/photographer Catherine Wagner.

Rankings (pre-merger)

For 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked Mills in the following "Best Regional Universities West" categories:
  • No. 1 in Best Value Schools
  • No. 1 in Best Undergraduate Teaching
  • No. 8 in Most Innovative Schools
  • No. 12 in Regional Universities West
  • No. 13 in Top Performers on Social Mobility
For 2021, The Princeton Review included Mills in the following lists and ranked Mills in the following categories:
  • The Best 386 Colleges
  • Best Western
  • Green Colleges
  • No. 9 for Administrators Get Low Marks
  • No. 13 Most Liberal Students
  • No. 14 LGBTQ-Friendly
  • No. 15 for Stone-Cold Sober Students
  • No. 20 for Least Religious Students
In 2020, Washington Monthly ranked Mills sixth out of 614 schools on its Master's Universities list, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.
In 2019, Forbes included Mills as one of the 650 best schools in the United States out of a possible 4,300 degree-granting postsecondary institutions. Forbes ranked Mills as follows:
  • No. 343 in Top Colleges 2019
  • No. 227 in Private Colleges
  • No. 70 in the West

    Student life

Student body demographics

For the 2018–19 academic year, Mills student body included 1,255 students, with 766 undergraduate women and 489 graduate students of all genders. Forty-one states are represented in the student body, and international students from 15 countries attend the college. The average class size at Mills is 16 students, with a student:faculty ratio of 11:1. The average class size at Mills is small, with 76% of Mills classes having 20 students or less. For the 2023–24 academic year, Mills student body included 1,037 students: 800 first year undergraduate students, 119 first-year graduate students, and 136 continuing Mills students across undergraduate and graduate programs.
Fifty-six percent of the undergraduate students self-identify as students of color or multi-racial. Sixteen percent of the undergraduate population are "Resumer" students who are 23 years or older and returning to college. Over half of Mills Undergraduates live on-campus in any of the twelve housing options offered by the college.
Forty-one percent of the graduate students self-identify as students of color or multi-racial. Of the graduate student body, eighty-six percent are full-time students. Over three-quarters of Graduate students commute to campus with only thirteen percent opting to live on-campus.

Student clubs and organizations

There are more than 50 student organizations at Mills run by both undergraduate and graduate students. These groups host campus-wide art exhibitions, dance performances, concerts, and lectures, as well as annual events such as Black & White Ball, Earth Day Fair, and Spring Fling.
Students also participate in the Associated Students of Mills College, an executive board of elected and appointed positions. Under the governance of a student-drafted Constitution, the board manages and disburses an annual budget that supports more than 50 student organizations, student publications, campus-wide events, and various student initiatives. ASMC is the voice of the student body to the college administration.
Mills' undergraduate student publications include the Campanil, the campus newspaper; the Crest, the Mills College yearbook; and the Mills Academic Research Journal. Additional Mills publications include The Walrus Literary Journal, the Womanist, A Women of Color Journal, and the 580 Split journal of arts and letters.

Athletics

Prior to the 2022 merger, the school's athletic teams competed as the Mills College Cyclones. Mills was a member of the NCAA Division III ranks, primarily competing in the Coast to Coast Athletic Conference.
Mills fielded six intercollegiate women's varsity sports teams: cross country, rowing, soccer, swimming, tennis and volleyball.
All varsity sports at Mills College at Northeastern are currently on hold in light of the new merger.