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==Sarah Lawrence in popular culture==
==Sarah Lawrence in popular culture==
* In one episode of the sitcom [[Frasier]], [[Gil Chesterton]] reveals that his wife in an SLC graduate.
* In one episode of the sitcom [[Frasier]], [[Gil Chesterton]] reveals that his wife is an SLC graduate.
* In an episode of the animated Fox sitcom, [[The Simpsons]], the Thai restaurant owner says to new employee Bart, "You hang Thai menu on door. I get more business. Send daughters to small, liberal arts college. Swarthmore. Maybe, Sarah Lawrence. Call professors by first name."
* In an episode of the animated Fox sitcom, [[The Simpsons]], the Thai restaurant owner says to new employee Bart, "You hang Thai menu on door. I get more business. Send daughters to small, liberal arts college. Swarthmore. Maybe, Sarah Lawrence. Call professors by first name."
* In Gilmore Girls, Louise complains about the work Paris assigned her and Paris responds by saying that Louise will be grateful when she gets into SLC.
* In an episode of [[Gilmore Girls]], Louise complains about the work assigned to her by Paris. Paris responds by saying that Louise will be grateful when she gets into Sarah Lawrence.
* In the book (and later, the film) [[American Psycho]]
* The college is mentioned in the book (and later, the film), [[American Psycho]]
* In the film [[10 Things I Hate about You]] Katarina Stratford wants to attend SLC
* In the film [[10 Things I Hate about You]], Katarina Stratford wants to attend SLC.
* In the television show, [[Will & Grace]] Karen remarks that she attended SLC
* In the television show [[Will & Grace]], Karen remarks that she attended Sarah Lawrence.
* In the [[Joseph Heller]] novel, [[Good as Gold]]
* A mention of the college is found in the [[Joseph Heller]] novel, [[Good as Gold]].
* In the [[J.D. Salinger]] novel, [[Franny and Zooey]]
* Sarah Lawrence is referenced in the [[J.D. Salinger]] novel, [[Franny and Zooey]].
* It has been suggested that the bucolic east-coast college in the [[Don Delillo]] novel, [[White Noise]], is based on Sarah Lawrence
* It has been suggested that the bucolic east-coast college in the [[Don Delillo]] novel, [[White Noise]], is based on Sarah Lawrence.
* In the [[Dani Shapiro]] novel, [[slow motion: a true story]]
* In the [[Dani Shapiro]] novel, [[slow motion: a true story]], Sarah Lawrence is mentioned.
* In the film [[The Notebook]] Allie Hamilton attends SLC before becoming engaged to Lon Hammond Jr.
* In the film [[The Notebook]], Allie Hamilton attends SLC before becoming engaged to Lon Hammond Jr.
* In the television show "[[Designing Women]]", when Charlene Stillfield ([[Jean Smart]]) is belittled for her lack of pedigree by her mother-in-law-to-be's old-money Mississippi family
* In the television show "[[Designing Women]]", Charlene Stillfield ([[Jean Smart]]) is belittled for her lack of pedigree by her mother-in-law-to-be's old-money Mississippi family, with reference to the college.
* In the television show "[[Entourage]]," [[Rex Lee]]'s character, Lloyd, was an art history major at Sarah Lawrence.
* In the television show "[[Entourage]]," [[Rex Lee]]'s character, Lloyd, was an art history major at Sarah Lawrence.
* Sarah Lawrence alumna [[Ann Patchett]] based part of the setting of her novel, [[Bel Canto]], on the President's House on the [[Sarah Lawrence College Campus|Sarah Lawrence campus]].
* Sarah Lawrence alumna [[Ann Patchett]] based part of the setting of her novel, [[Bel Canto]], on the President's House on the [[Sarah Lawrence College Campus|Sarah Lawrence campus]].
* In an episode of "[[Sabrina the Teenaged Witch]]" in which Sabrina is transported to the 1960s, she tries to apply to an all-male college. The college official suggests SLC instead.
* In an episode of "[[Sabrina the Teenaged Witch]]," Sabrina is transported to the 1960s and tries to apply to an all-male college. The college official suggests Sarah Lawrence instead.


==Trivia==
==Trivia==

Revision as of 18:01, 9 July 2006

Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College Logo
MottoWisdom with Understanding
TypePrivate Liberal Arts
Established1926
PresidentMichele Tolela Myers
Undergraduates1,197
Postgraduates314
Location, ,
CampusMetropolitan
AthleticsSarah Lawrence College Gryphons
Sarah Lawrence College Gryphons
ColorsGreen
Websitewww.slc.edu

Sarah Lawrence College is a co-educational, four-year liberal arts college in Bronxville and Yonkers, New York, United States.

Description

Founded in 1926 as a women's college, Sarah Lawrence first officially opened its doors to men in 1969.

Sarah Lawrence is located in the Lawrence Park section of Yonkers, New York, (though listed in the postal zone of Bronxville, New York), and is about a thirty-minute train ride north of New York City. It has an undergraduate student population of 1,197 in addition to 314 graduate students, and is renowned for its strong writing and performing arts departments. The college boasts a low 6-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio and a nontraditional but rigorous, individualized approach to academics.

At the undergraduate level, Sarah Lawrence offers a Bachelor of Arts degree where, instead of traditional majors, students take a wide variety of courses in four different curricular distributions: the creative arts (creative writing, music, dance, theater, painting, film), history and the social sciences (anthropology, economics, political science, sociology), the humanities (Asian studies, art history, languages, literature, philosophy, religion), and natural science and mathematics (biology, chemistry, physics). Each student is assigned to a faculty advisor, known as a "don," to plan a course of study. Most courses (apart from courses in the performing arts) consist of two parts: the seminar, limited to 15 students, and the conference, a private, semi-weekly meeting with a seminar professor. In these conferences, students develop individual projects that extend the course material and link it to their personal interests. Sarah Lawrence has no required courses and traditional examinations have largely been replaced with writing final research papers and essays. The College sponsors international programs in Florence, Oxford, at Reid Hall in Paris, and at the British Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Additionally, Sarah Lawrence is one of only three American colleges operating an international program in Cuba.[1]

Sarah Lawrence also offers Master's-level programs in Writing, Child Development, Health Advocacy, Human Genetics, Theatre, and Dance, and is home to the nation's oldest graduate program in Women's History.

History

Early history

Westlands, completed in 1917, is the oldest building on campus.

Founded in 1928 by pharmaceutical and real estate mogul William Van Duzer Lawrence on the grounds of his estate and named for his wife, Sarah Bates Lawrence, Sarah Lawrence College was originally constructed as a finishing school for affluent young women in rapidly expanding Westchester County. William Lawrence played a critical role in the development of the community of Bronxville near the present-day Sarah Lawrence campus, and his name can be found on the affluent Lawrence Park neighborhood adjacent to the campus, and at Lawrence Hospital in downtown Bronxville, an institution that was created when Lawrence’s son, Dudley, nearly died en route to a hospital in neighboring New York City.

William Lawrence worked closely with the president of Vassar College, Henry MacCracken, to establish a school that was founded on ideas of educational reform that MacCracken felt unable to apply at Vassar. The College was modeled with the tutorial system of Oxford University in mind, and a low student-to-faculty ratio was considered to be of absolute importance. Followed by Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence was the first liberal arts college in the United States to incorporate a rigorous approach to the arts with the principles of progressive education, focusing on the primacy of teaching and the concentration of curricular efforts on individual needs[2]. Sarah Lawrence began to take its present shape shortly after World War II, when the College began admitting male students on the G.I. Bill, though the school did not become fully coeducational until 1969.

Although his wife, Sarah Bates Lawrence, was progressively minded in the sense that she believed in a woman’s right to vote and to a formal education and had worked to fund women’s colleges throughout the nation, the values of the Lawrence family as a whole do not accurately reflect the present shape of the College. William Lawrence believed that the role of a young woman’s education was to train her for polite society, and the nature of that society was not questioned. Sarah Lawrence College was founded with these social values in mind.

During the early years of the College, student lifestyles were thoroughly regulated. Students could neither keep a car nor ride in one without the accompaniment of a chauffeur, and men could be entertained only during restricted hours and under the close watch of a staff supervisor. A major component of the curriculum was “productive leisure,” wherein students had to work for eight hours weekly in such fields as modeling, shorthand, typewriting, applying make-up, gardening, and other disciplines that today seem quite opposite from the College’s curricular composition[3].

Development of today’s Sarah Lawrence

It was perhaps Harold Taylor, President of Sarah Lawrence College from 1945 to 1959, who had the greatest influence on shaping the College as it is known today. Taylor, elected President at age 30, maintained a friendship with educational philosopher John Dewey, and worked to employ the Dewey method at Sarah Lawrence. Taylor spent much of his career calling for educational reform in the United States, using the success of his own College as an example of the possibilities of a personalized, modern, and rigorous approach to higher education.

Political involvement and activism

Political activism has played a crucial role in forming the spirit of the Sarah Lawrence community since the early years of the College. As early as 1938, students were working in working-class sections of Yonkers, New York to help bring equality and educational opportunitiees, and the Sarah Lawrence College War Board, organized by students in the fall of 1942, sought to aid troops fighting in World War II. During a time when the College's enrollment was at only 293 students, 204 signed up as volunteers during the first week of the War Board[4]. During the so-called McCarthy Years, a number of Sarah Lawrence's faculty members were accused by the American Legion of being sympathetic to the Communist Party, and were called before the Jenner Committee[5]. For more information on accusations of Communist Party sympathies, click [6]. Since that time, activism has played a central role in student life, with movements for civil rights in the 1960s and for student and faculty diversity in the 1980s. Also in the 1960s, students established an Upward Bound program for students from lower-income and poverty areas to prepare for college[7]. Theatre Outreach, the Child Development Institute, the Empowering Teachers Program, the Community Writers program, the Office of Community Partnership and the Fulbright High School Writers Program are among the many programs founded the since the 1970s to provide services to the larger community. In the late 1980s students occupied Westlands, the main administrative building for the campus, in a sit-in for wider diversity. Students have remained active in recent years, with numerous organizations and movements sprouting in response to the Iraq War. For many years, the College has been considered at the vanguard of the sexual rights movement.

Academics, curriculum, and philosophy

The Sarah Lawrence curriculum has for decades been regarded as a model for the 20th Century American movement toward progressive and highly personalized education. In terms of its faculty, the College neither recognizes faculty rank nor fosters a "publish or perish" environment in hopes of cultivating an atmosphere that regards teaching as the foremost function of the faculty. Graduate assistants never teach classes, and the resources offered by the College's six-to-one student to faculty ratio, the lowest in the nation, are capitalized on with small classes and intensive one-on-one conferences between students and professors in a system patterned on the Oxford method of "donning." Students are generally limited to taking three classes each semester in hopes of allowing the student the opportunity for a thorough engagement with the course's material. The administration does not make attempts to standardize departmental syllabi or teaching procedures, leaving each professor free to design his or her own curriculum.

Sarah Lawrence does not use grades for the purposes of student competition or as a singular representation of a student's achievement in a given course. While grades are recorded for transcript purposes, they have been replaced in practice by lengthy, detailed evaluations written by the course's professor at the end of each semester. These evaluations are meant to reflect the student's progress rather than give a certain numerical depiction of adequacy, and the student's work in his or her conferences, within the class itself, and on the various papers and assignments expected in each course are taken into account in their construction.

Sarah Lawrence does not offer traditional major fields, and each undergraduate is awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts. Students work closely with their faculty mentor, or "don," who is assigned in the student's first year, to design a curricular concentration and to ensure that the student does not receive an unfocused education. The don will often encourage the student to integrate his or her courses through the student's conference work or through various outside projects.

Donning

With a curricular system that lacks a sturdy infrastructure of regulations and rules, the Sarah Lawrence student runs the risk of having an unfocused education. The College has ensured that such a problem be easily avoided through its system of "donning," modeled after a similar approach used at Oxford University. In his or her freshman year, each student selects a first-year seminar, the subject matter of which is meant to correspond to their potential fields of interest in their future studies. These seminars are often interdisciplinary in organization. The teacher of this seminar becomes the student's "don," or close academic advisor, who will remain with the student until graduation unless the student chooses to change dons for reasons of his or her own choice. No student is obliged to stay with a particular don. Transfer students, who do not take first-year seminars at Sarah Lawrence, are assigned dons by the administration with the reminder that the assignment is random. Over the years, the don will assure that the student's course choices are balanced and not unfocused and that the student meets all necessary requirements for graduation. The don serves as more than an academic advisor, though, and can intervene in disputes between the student and the administration, staff, or faculty, or in times of distress on the part of the student. It is not unusual for students to form lasting personal relationships with their dons that persist well after the student has left the College.

The three-course system and the "Third"

Another unique and, perhaps, peculiar component of the curriculum at Sarah Lawrence is the three-course system that is employed in all four years of study. Students are limited to taking only three courses in a given semester, with exceptions being made only after the student has succesfully petitioned the appropriate administrative committees. Just as at many other colleges, a full-time courseload comprises fifteen credit-hours each semester, thereby leaving the value of each course at five credits per semester, with yearlong courses (which, unlike at most American colleges and universities, are quite common) being valued at ten credits. The idea behind limiting the students' number of courses is not to limit the workload. Instead, the purpose is to allow each student to become thoroughly engaged with the material of each class. Moreover, with the student being required to meet in a one-on-one conference with his or her don (see "Donning," above) at least every other week, and with a sustained and extensive project being expected as the result of these conferences, most students feel as though they have six courses each semester rather than three.

In order to eliminate a number of curricular and pedagogical problems posed by the three-course system, the College has provided an option known as the "Third," wherein one or more of the three courses taken in a given semester is replaced by related components. For example, since the performing arts require that a series of component classes be taken rather than one large, general course, the student takes a "Theatre Third." In such a situation, the student would be taking several mini-classes (for example: vocal techniques, the Alexander Technique, Shakespearian acting, etc.), the sum of which are counted on the student's transcript as one course. The Third, therefore, allows students access to more specialized professors and a more thorough foundation in the discipline. Thirds are also commonly used for music and dance. Yet another option is the "Language-Lecture Third," wherein the student takes a foreign-language course in addition to one of the four semester-long lecture courses required for graduation. The two courses are counted on the student's transcript as one course, thereby allowing the student to take four courses for the price of three. The Language-Lecture Third was implemented after a number of students expressed a reluctance to devoting a full third of their curriculum to the study of a foreign language.

International programs

The College has become known for its thorough and creative international programs and currently sponsors six of them in four countries. Sarah Lawrence makes all practical efforts to preserve its most characteristic elements, such as one-on-one interaction with professors, small classes, and an emphasis on qualitative comprehension, in its programs overseas.

  • Cuba. The only formal American university program currently operating in Cuba, the program is open to students with an intermediate or advanced level of competency in Spanish, and focuses on language skills, the social sciences, and the humanities.
  • London. Centered at the British American Drama Academy, the program expands Sarah Lawrence's long-standing and vibrant tradition in the performing arts.
  • Oxford. An advanced academic program at Oxford University in England.
  • Paris. Centered at historic Reid Hall in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, the program is Sarah Lawrence's oldest and focuses on the humanities and creative arts.
  • Catana. Open to students who have an advanced comprehension of Italian, the Catana program takes advantage of its Sicilian setting to provide students with an experience in cultural immersion.
  • Florence. Open to students at all levels of Italian-language comprehension, the Florence program is noted for its music and art history program.

Campus

The Sarah Lawrence campus is located on 41 hilly acres of grassy fields and rocky outcroppings atop a promontory above the banks of the Bronx River. Much of the campus was originally a part of the estate of the College's founder, William Van Duzer Lawrence, though the College has more than doubled its geographical size since Lawrence bequeathed his estate to the College in 1926. The terrain of the campus is characterized by dramatic outcroppings of exposed bedrock shaded by large oak and elm trees. Much of the older architecture on the campus follows the Tudor style that was popular in the area during the early twentieth century, and many of the College's newer buildings attempt to achieve an updated interpretation of the same pattern language. It can be said that the campus is divided into two distinctive sections: the "Old Campus" and the "New Campus," wherein the former is roughly contained within the boundaries of the erstwhile Lawrence estate, and the latter is that which was obtained some time after the College's earliest years.

The old campus

The centerpiece of the Old Campus is Westlands, an enormous manor house that was custom-built for the Lawrence family during the 1910s. Upon its completion in 1917, its extraordinary architecture and graceful proportions earned it a spot on the front page of The New York Times. William Lawrence also had a small gazebo constructed on the north lawn of his estate, which has since been fully enclosed and now houses the College's "Teahouse," serving students a variety of baked goods and beverages. A stable and carriage house at the extreme southern end of the estate, now known as Sheffield House, has since been converted to faculty office and classroom space. One of the College's first purpose-built buildings, Bates, named for the architect of all of the original buildings on campus, is an enormous facility that has housed variously over the years classrooms, offices, a basketball court, and art studios. It is now devoted almost entirely to student recreational facilities. The four original dorm spaces on campus, which are casually referred to as "The Old Dorms," were completed in the 1920s and early 1930s, the construction of which was supervised by William Lawrence's son, Dudley Lawrence, for whom one of the buildings is now named. These dormitories are still quite popular among students, and also house a number of classrooms, a lecture hall, and faculty offices. Across the North Lawn from the Old Dorms stand three buildings constructed in the Modernist architectural style and designed in the late 1950s by world-renowned architect Phillip Johnson. Known as the "New Dorms," they house traditional and apartment-style living spaces. On the South Lawn of Westlands stand the Ruth Leff Siegal Student Center, the DeCarlo Performing Arts Center, and the Esther Raushenbush Library.

The new campus

The area outside the original Lawrence estate is now host to some of the College's more cutting-edge facilities, though a number of stately, century-old Tudor style mansions are still found among these newer additions, among them Andrews, Tweed, Lynd, and Slonim Houses, all of which were once private residences. In 2004, the College completed construction of a state-of-the-art visual arts facility, the Monica A. and Charles A. Heimbold Visual Arts Center, the sleek architecture and enironmentally friendly aspects of which earned the College national press attention. Not far from this facility is the less-glamorous but equally practical Hill House, a seven-story apartment building purchased by the College in the late 1990s that now houses student residences. Across the street from Hill House is a large, unnamed manor that was purchased by Sarah Lawrence in 2004 from the government of Rwanda. This building once housed the Rwandan consul, and will not be used by the College until the city of Yonkers agrees to its rezoning. On the same end of campus is the College's athletics and physical education facility, the Campbell Sports Center. On the opposite end of the campus stands the Science and Mathematics Center, completed in 1994.

Student life

Athletics

Sarah Lawrence College is a member of the Hudson Valley Women’s’ Athletic Conference (HVWAC), the Hudson Valley Men’s’ Athletic Conference (HVMAC), the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, and the United States Rowing Association. Most of the College’s athletics programs are centered at the Campbell Sports Center on the southern end of the campus, though the College operates its equestrian program at nearby facilities. Although athletics have never been a central facet of the Sarah Lawrence experience, and despite the lack of athletics scholarships, many students choose to participate in the school’s various sports programs and the College requires a nominal amount of physical education participation for graduation. In addition to the programs listed below, the College occasionally sponsors a number of other sports, such as cross-country and men’s crew, according to student demand. The teams play officially with a gryphon as their mascot and with a dark green as their color.

President

Current President

The current president is Michele Tolela Myers, who has served since 1998. Born in Morocco and raised in Paris, President Myers holds a Ph.D. and a master's degree from the University of Denver, another master's degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, and a Diplôme in political science and economics from the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Paris. President Myers has seen the recent completion of a $75 million capital campaign at Sarah Lawrence, as well as the construction of several new buildings and facilities on the campus. Dr. Myers announced in late 2005 that she will retire in the summer of 2007[8].

Past presidents

  • Marion Coats (1924-1929). A friend of Vassar College President Henry McCracken and of Sarah Lawrence founder William Van Duzer Lawrence, Coats served as the College's first president.
  • Constance Warren (1929-1945). Warren's primary contribution to the College was her recruitment of a nationally renowned faculty and her advocation of a progressive educational philosophy in the College's early years.
  • Harold Taylor (1945-1959). Renowned for having remembered the names of every student on campus, Taylor, elected at age 30, was the youngest and perhaps most influential president in the College's history.
  • Harrison Tweed (Acting President, 1959-1960). A longtime board member, Tweed increased the size of the College while refusing to enlarge classes.
  • Paul Ward (1960-1965). A former engineering professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
  • Esther Raushenbush (1965-1969). A former member of the Sarah Lawrence literature faculty (1935-1946 and 1957-1962), dean of the College (1946-1957), and founder and director of Sarah Lawrence's Center for Continuing Education (1962-1965).
  • Charles DeCarlo (1969-1981). A former IBM executive, DeCarlo was a strong force in solidifying the College's finances.
  • Alice Stone Ilchman (1981-1998), who served as an educational advisor to President Jimmy Carter, saw the expansion of the College's physical resources, faculty, and student body.

Notable alumni

Among the College's more recognizable alumni are television personality Barbara Walters, actresses Téa Leoni, Larisa Oleynik, Jill Clayburgh, and Joanne Woodward, film director Brian De Palma, singer Carly Simon, composer and choreographer Meredith Monk, dancer Jean Erdman, fashion designer Vera Wang, writers JJ Abrams and Ann Patchett, poet Lucy Grealy, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Alice Walker and Louise Gluck. Several notable people have attended without receiving degrees, including conceptual artist Yoko Ono, photographer Linda McCartney, and actor Cary Elwes.

Notable faculty

As a result of its small class sizes and unique fusion of informality and rigor in its academic environment, Sarah Lawrence has been able to attract a number of high-profile faculty members that is perhaps disproportianately large for a school its size, including winners of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award, and Emmy Award. Among the more notable of these educators who are currently teaching at the College are novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet, Middle Eastern Affairs expert Fawaz Gerges, poet Marie Howe, and economist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, III. Past faculty members have included world-renowned mythographer Joseph Campbell, film director Brian DePalma, writer and thinker E.L. Doctorow, choreographer Martha Graham, composers William Schuman, Norman Dello Joio and George Tsontakis, master violin teacher Dorothy Delay, leftist intellectual Susan Sontag, and poets Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell, Grace Paley, and Muriel Rukeyser. In 2005, current faculty member Eduardo Lago won the oldest literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Nadal.

Sarah Lawrence college in quotes

We cannot preserve the loyalty and political integrity of our students and teachers by congressional investigation. We can only paralyze their will to think independently and to act politically. It is the proper function of boards of trustees to protect the educational system from political control by the Government. If education is conceived as a means of telling students what to think and making sure that they think it, this is the most un-American activity of all.

— Harold Taylor, President of Sarah Lawrence, 1945-1959

Sarah Lawrence is a noble intellectual community

— Komozi Woodard, Biographer

Schoenberg and Webern she'd studied at Sarah Lawrence and all that, and I didn't know any of that stuff, and she was turning me on to it, even Bertolt Brecht

— John Lennon, commenting, on the day of his death, on Yoko Ono's influence on his song, "Woman is the Nigger of the World.

"[9]

A Sarah Lawrence education teaches you that you have the right and duty to be what some people would call a troublemaker—that is, an independent, intelligent, curious person who wants to find his or her own solutions to things

— Meredith Monk, Composer and Choreographer

The task of the College is to teach liberalism—not the philosophy of an ethnocentric, middle-class, nationalist, Western, white man’s ethic, but liberalism conceived as a classless philosophy, which draws individual human beings closer together, teaches a concern for the welfare of all social groups and all countries, and judges the value of acts and societies by the effect they have upon enrichment of individual human lives.

— Harold Taylor, President of Sarah Lawrence, 1945-1959

I fell in love, fell into debt, and fell head over heels for [Sarah Lawrence], a nurturing and encouraging oasis that helped me fully grasp who I could be.

— Miles Beller, Novelist

The wonderful thing about Sarah Lawrence was that [...] it had been founded as a women's college with the idea that women did not need or really want, nor were they properly served by, a spin-off on the male curriculum or the model of a male college. So the idea was that we should follow the interests of the students. [...] You have to have men and women of considerable sophistication to follow a student's lead and to be able to carry that person into the mainstream of the humanities out of his or her own impulse. That we did. Very soon the creative arts faculties built up. In those days, in the men's universities, if you wanted to study art, you studied the history of art. Here we had studios. And the dance: Martha Graham teaching dance at Sarah Lawrence! I mean, this is what we had, a marvelous school.

— Joseph Campbell, mythographer

[10].

Sarah Lawrence College is a distinctive and noble institution of higher education

learning. It is built around a model of teaching centered on the growth of the student, while encouraging lifetime learning for faculty as well. In its chosen method, it sets a standard of excellence. That Sarah Lawrence College thrives in the future is vital not

merely for a generation of students, but for all of American education.

— From the 1997 Report of the Evaluation Team from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
  • In one episode of the sitcom Frasier, Gil Chesterton reveals that his wife is an SLC graduate.
  • In an episode of the animated Fox sitcom, The Simpsons, the Thai restaurant owner says to new employee Bart, "You hang Thai menu on door. I get more business. Send daughters to small, liberal arts college. Swarthmore. Maybe, Sarah Lawrence. Call professors by first name."
  • In an episode of Gilmore Girls, Louise complains about the work assigned to her by Paris. Paris responds by saying that Louise will be grateful when she gets into Sarah Lawrence.
  • The college is mentioned in the book (and later, the film), American Psycho
  • In the film 10 Things I Hate about You, Katarina Stratford wants to attend SLC.
  • In the television show Will & Grace, Karen remarks that she attended Sarah Lawrence.
  • A mention of the college is found in the Joseph Heller novel, Good as Gold.
  • Sarah Lawrence is referenced in the J.D. Salinger novel, Franny and Zooey.
  • It has been suggested that the bucolic east-coast college in the Don Delillo novel, White Noise, is based on Sarah Lawrence.
  • In the Dani Shapiro novel, slow motion: a true story, Sarah Lawrence is mentioned.
  • In the film The Notebook, Allie Hamilton attends SLC before becoming engaged to Lon Hammond Jr.
  • In the television show "Designing Women", Charlene Stillfield (Jean Smart) is belittled for her lack of pedigree by her mother-in-law-to-be's old-money Mississippi family, with reference to the college.
  • In the television show "Entourage," Rex Lee's character, Lloyd, was an art history major at Sarah Lawrence.
  • Sarah Lawrence alumna Ann Patchett based part of the setting of her novel, Bel Canto, on the President's House on the Sarah Lawrence campus.
  • In an episode of "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch," Sabrina is transported to the 1960s and tries to apply to an all-male college. The college official suggests Sarah Lawrence instead.

Trivia

  • The Joseph Campbell Controversy refers to former Sarah Lawrence faculty member, Joseph Campbell, who was a globally renowned mythographer and anthropologist who was (and perhaps still is) the College's most well-known professor. After his death, Campbell was accused in an article by Brendan Gill, "The faces of Joseph Campbell" from New York Review of Books (Vol. 36, #14, September 1989, pp. 16-19) of being anti-semitic. Gill, who identified himself as a friend of Campbell from the Century Club in New York City, notes in the article that he wrote it in reaction to the enormous popularity of The Power of Myth series in 1988. This article was followed up by "Brendon Gill vs. Defenders of Joseph Campbell-Joseph Campbell: An Exchange" from New York Review of Books (Vol. 36, #17, November 9, 1989, pp.57-61), a series of letters from former students and colleagues which argue against the accusations, as well as a response from Gill. The controversy compelled at least one professor, a Jewish member of the literature faculty who at one point was a colleague of Campbell's to turn down an offer for the position of the "Joseph Campbell Chair in the Humanities".
  • The College Mascot is officially a gryphon, a mythological creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. The gryphon was chosen in the 1990s to represent the College's athletics teams after a long period of fielding sports teams without an official mascot, and was chosen as a symbol of strength and intelligence. In practice, however, most students identify their mascot not as the gryphon, but as a black squirrel, a number of which can be found on the campus. The decision to associate more with the squirrel than with the gryphon seems to have little to do with a rejection of the strength and intelligence associated with the latter than with an affinity for the characteristics for the former; that is to say, these squirrels are neurotic, hostile, antisocial, clad in black, and are rarely seen during the winter, much like a stereotypical Sarah Lawrence student. As a result, the squirrel and the color black have come to be the de facto symbols of the College, with the student-run café, for example, operating under the name "The Black Squirrel Café."

References

  1. ^ Kaplan, Barbara. Becoming Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence College. 26 February, 2006 23:09 UTC [11].
  2. ^ Kaplan, Barbara. Becoming Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence College. 26 February, 2006 23:09 UTC [12].
  3. ^ United States. Congress. Joint Committee. A Directory of Urban Research Study Centers. Washington: United States Congress, 1977.
  4. ^ Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).
  5. ^ Woodard, Komozi. A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
  6. ^ Giuliano, Brenda; Giuliano, Geoffrey, eds. The Lost Lennon Interviews. London: Omnibus Press, 1996.
  7. ^ Campbell, Joseph. The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. New York: Harper and Row, 2003 (2nd edition).
  8. ^ Simbeck, Rob. Daughter of the Air: The Brief Soaring Life of Cornelia Fort. New York: Grove Press, 1994.
  9. ^ Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
  10. ^ Sarah Lawrence College. Sarah Lawrence College President to Retire. Sarah Lawrence College. 27 February, 2006 01:33 UTC [13].