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Mills College is a liberal arts women's college in Oakland, California. It was the first women's college on the west coast and is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. It has played an important role in modern American music through its post-graduate program in experimental music, and is highly regarded for its English and Education departments.
Early history Mills College was initially founded as the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia in 1852. It was under the leadership of Mary Atkins, a graduate of Oberlin College. In 1866, Susan Tolman Mills, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), and her husband Cyrus Mills bought the Young Ladies Seminary renaming it Mills Seminary. In 1871 the school was moved to Oakland, California and the school was incorporated in 1877. The school became Mills College in 1885. In 1890, after serving for decades as principal (under two presidents as well), Susan, herself, finally became the President of the college and held the position for 19 years *. Beginning in 1906 the seminary classes were progressively eliminated. In 1921, Mills granted its first master's degrees. Recent history In 1989, Mills Hall was damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake. Though outwardly intact, the quake damaged the building's foundation rendering it unsafe to occupy. It was subsequently renovated and reopened in 1994, including the 4th floor which had long been closed. In 1990, trustees announced a plan to adopt coeducation. 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. The students successfully shut the campus down, forcing administrators to meet off campus, outdoors or in their cars. Some professors held classes outdoors to avoid corrupting the student protest. The Alumnae Association, an independent organization, considered a lawsuit against the college but instead worked with student protesters and college administration to raise pledges from alumnae on the condition that the coed decision be reversed. Within weeks, the Trustees had a special meeting and reversed their position, reaffirming Mills' commitment to remain a single-sex undergraduate institution. The college president, Mary S. Metz, had been seen by students as a traitor when she admitted that she had reluctantly voted to admit men in the first vote. She was an exuberant supporter of the ultimate decision to remain a women's college, helping to orchestrate the negotiations between alumnae and trustees. But the damage to her reputation at the college was irreparable. Shortly after the decision was reversed, the charismatic and previously well-respected Metz resigned. Enrollment and academics In fall 2005, a record number of students applied and were admitted to the college which increased graduate and undergraduate enrollment. Undergraduate students currently make up about 65% of the students on-campus. The undergraduate program is all women, and the graduate program is open to both men and women. Mills was the first women's college to offer a degree in computer science, beginning in 1974. It has recently added a new professional business school and is in the process of a feasibility study for a new law school. In 2004, Mills began offering a Masters of Business Administration degree. Mills College's post-graduate program is co-educational, and is noted for being at the forefront of experimental music study and composition. Well-known composer Luciano Berio was on the music faculty of Mills in 1962-1964, and Pauline Oliveros was the first director of The Tape Music Center (1966-1967), where she composed her electronic works Alien Bog and Beautiful Soop. Morton Subotnick received his master's degree from Mills, studying composition with Leon Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. Laurie Anderson, Dave Brubeck, and Steve Reich attended the program, as well as the famous synthesizer designer Donald Buchla. Terry Riley taught at Mills starting in the early 1970s. Avant-garde jazz pioneer Anthony Braxton has taught at Mills on an intermittent basis since the 1970s. Campus The campus, which is an astounding 135 acres in the middle of Oakland, also includes the historic Campanile (1904), designed by Julia Morgan of Hearst Castle fame, and is the first concrete reinforced structure west of the Mississippi. Architects of the time laughed at Morgan and told her it would not last the next Bay-Area earthquake, but it stood tall through the 1906 and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake without a crack or scratch. The only thing that has been repaired on the clock tower is the clock mechanism itself. Also housed on campus is a laboratory school, an EF (International Students for learning English, independent of the college) location, an all-girls' middle school (also independent of the college) named for Julia Morgan, a Greek theater, and many other attractions. Its main route of entry, Richards Road, is included in The 100 Most Beautiful Streets of America. Presidents Notable faculty, past and present Notable alumnae and alumni Trivia The mansarded structure, which provided homes for faculty and students as well as classrooms and dining halls is now a California Historical Landmark ( Mills College was part of a joke regarding Stanford's forfeit of its annual rugby match with California in 2001. Points of interest | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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