Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a men's college under the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown. It became a secular, coeducational institution.
Wesleyan is a primarily undergraduate institution with a small graduate program. It offers 47 majors as part of an open curriculum. The college accepted female applicants from 1872 to 1909, but did not become fully coeducational until 1970. Before full coeducation, Wesleyan alumni and other supporters of women's education established Connecticut College in 1912. Wesleyan, along with Amherst and Williams colleges, is part of "The Little Three". Its teams compete athletically as a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference in NCAA Division III.
History
Before Wesleyan was founded, a military academy established by Alden Partridge existed, consisting of the campus's North and South Colleges. As this academy failed, New England Methodists bought it and founded in 1831 an all-male Methodist college. Willbur Fisk was the first president. Despite its name, Wesleyan was never officially a denominational seminary, though its curriculum and campus religious life were shaped by a heavy Methodist influence. In 1909, it built Judd Hall, named after alumnus Orange Judd, one of the earliest academic buildings devoted exclusively to undergraduate science instruction on any American college or university campus.The Wesleyan student body numbered about 300 in 1910 and had grown to 800 in 1960.
Wesleyan is, along with Amherst and Williams colleges, a member of the Little Three. Wesleyan began as the smallest of the three. Later on, it expanded its programs, qualifying as a university with a variety of graduate offerings and became larger than the other two.
In 1872, the university became one of the first U.S. colleges to attempt coeducation by admitting a small number of female students, a venture then known as the "Wesleyan Experiment". "In 1909, the board of trustees voted to stop admitting women as undergraduates, fearing that the school was losing its masculine image and that women would not be able to contribute to the college financially after graduation the way men could." From 1912 to 1970, Wesleyan operated again as an all-male college.
Wesleyan became independent of the Methodist church in 1937. In 2000, the university was designated as a historic Methodist site.
Beginning in the late 1950s, president Victor Lloyd Butterfield began a reorganization program that resembled Harvard's house system and Yale's colleges. Undergraduate study would be divided into seven smaller residential colleges, with their own faculty and centralized graduate studies. Doctoral programs and a Center for Advanced Studies were included in this reorganization.
The building program begun under this system created three residential colleges on Foss Hill, followed by three more residential colleges. Although the structures were built, only four of the proposed academic programs were begun. Two of those continue today: the College of Letters and the College of Social Studies. It has a student-faculty ratio of 7:1.
Butterfield's successors, Edwin Deacon Etherington and Colin Goetze Campbell, completed many innovations begun during Butterfield's administration, including the return of women in numbers equal to men; a quadrupling in the total area of building space devoted to laboratory, studio, and performing arts instruction; and a significant rise in racial, ethnic, and religious diversity and total number of students.
Campus
Wesleyan occupies a campus, with over 340 buildings, including the five-building College Row; Olin Memorial Library; Andrus Public Affairs Center; the Exley Science Center; Shanklin and Hall-Atwater Laboratories; the Van Vleck Observatory; Fayerweather with Beckham Hall; Russell House, a National Historic Landmark; the Allbritton Center; the Butterfield dormitories; the Fauver Field dormitories; and the 11-building Center for the Arts complex.When Wesleyan University was founded in 1831, it took over a campus with two buildings, North College and South College, from 1825. These were originally constructed by the City of Middletown for use by Captain Partridge's American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy. In 1829, after the Connecticut legislature declined it a charter to grant college degrees, Partridge moved his academy to Northfield, Vermont. The academy later became Norwich University and the Middletown buildings were acquired by Wesleyan.
The original North College was destroyed in a fire in 1906, but South College survived, being converted into offices that same year. The cupola and the belfry, which contains the Wesleyan Carillon, was designed by Henry Bacon and was added in 1916.The original core buildings of the campus were North College and South College. North College, a Nassau Hall-type building seen in most early American college campuses, was replaced after a fire in 1909 with the current North College. South College is the sole building from the beginning
Memorial Chapel was completed in 1871 to honor the memory of Wesleyan students and alumni who fought in the American Civil War. Wesleyan had among the highest per capita student enlistment rates in the Union army.
The northern end of High Street contains several large buildings that were former private residences, a few of which were exceptional architectural examples. These include Russell House, a National Historic Landmark, two Alsop family houses,, the Davison infirmary, a second Russell family house that contains the University Development Office, and Downey House. High Street, which is the old center of campus, was once described by Charles Dickens as "the most beautiful street in America".
Undergraduate academics
Wesleyan has 46 undergraduate academic departments. 40% of Wesleyan graduates take double majors.Wesleyan offers 3–2 programs in engineering with the California Institute of Technology and Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. These programs allow undergraduates to receive degrees in five years from both Wesleyan and Caltech or Columbia. Additionally, Wesleyan offers a BA/MA Program in the sciences leading to a bachelor's degree in the fourth year and a master's degree in the fifth year. Tuition for the fifth year of the master's degree is waived.
Wesleyan does not require undergraduates to take prescribed courses. Freshmen are offered First Year Initiative seminars, and undergraduates are encouraged in the first two years of study to take a minimum of two courses from two different departments in diverse subject areas.
Bailey College of the Environment
The Bailey College of the Environment, created in 2009, integrates the following components: 1) a curricular component, including the newly established environmental studies major, the environmental studies certificate, and a senior capstone project; 2) a Think Tank of Wesleyan faculty, scholars of prominence, and undergraduates whose aim is to produce scholarly work that will influence national and international thinking and action on critical environmental issues; and 3) the Collaborative Research Initiative, which is designed to encourage COE majors with the most potential to undertake environmental research.College of Film and the Moving Image
The university's Film Studies program is led by film historian Jeanine Basinger. In 2008, Vanity Fair said: "This tiny Connecticut University, with a total enrollment of 2,700, has turned out a shockingly disproportionate number of Hollywood movers and shakers." Similarly, in 2008, Variety magazine noted Basinger's contribution to the film industry through her work in the Wesleyan Film Studies program, and the large number of alumni of the program now working in Hollywood. University students, biographers, media experts, and scholars from around the world may have full access to The Wesleyan Cinema Archives, which document the film industry during the 20th century and contain the personal papers and film related materials of Ingrid Bergman, Frank Capra, Clint Eastwood, Federico Fellini, Elia Kazan, Frank Perry, Roberto Rossellini, Robert Saudek, Martin Scorsese, Gene Tierney, Raoul Walsh, and John Waters, amongst others.In February 2013, Wesleyan announced the creation of a new College of Film and the Moving Image, incorporating the Film Studies Department, the Center for Film Studies, the Cinema Archives and the Wesleyan Film Series.