Emmanuel College (Massachusetts): Difference between revisions

Private liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Emmanuel College is a private Roman Catholic college in Boston, Massachusetts. The college was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as the first women’s Catholic college in New England in 1919.^[3] In 2001, the college officially became a coeducational institution. It is a member of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium. In addition to the Fenway campus, Emmanuel operates a living and learning campus in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

History[edit]

The Emmanuel College Administration Building was built in 1919 by the architecture firm Maginnis & Walsh. Maginnis & Walsh are also known for building Gasson Hall at Boston College and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.^[4][5] The Administration Building at Emmanuel College is notable for its early 20th century Gothic architecture.

In the early years, Emmanuel was a day college preparing women for professional fields such as education, nursing and social work. Despite being commuters, students were involved in numerous co-curricular activities including student publications and athletics. The 1920s, 1930s and 1940s saw growth not only in the student population, academic programs and activities, but also in the physical campus, with additional land purchases on Brookline Avenue and Avenue Louis Pasteur. In 1949, the college completed the construction of Alumnae Hall, a science center, the first building constructed on campus after the original Administration Building.

The trustees of the college were incorporated by the state in 1921.^[6]

John F. Kennedy served on the college’s advisory board from 1946 until his death in 1963.^[7]

During the building boom of the 1950s and 1960s, Emmanuel became a residential college. New buildings included Marian Hall (residential, dining and student center), St. James Hall, Julie Hall, St. Ann Hall, Loretto Hall and St. Joseph Hall. The Cardinal Cushing Library was also dedicated in 1965. By 1968, residential students outnumbered commuters for the first time.

In the 1970s, Emmanuel responded to shifting demographics with new degree completion programs to adult learners. Then, in 1990, the college expanded its programs to include flexible accelerated formats, with programs in business and nursing offered at satellite centers.

In 2000, cash-strapped and with fewer than 500 students enrolled, Emmanuel College faced an uncertain future. Longtime President Sister Janet Eisner, who had presided throughout years of enrollment decline and sought to save the college from closure, oversaw a signed agreement with Merck Pharmaceuticals. With this, the college agreed to lease a portion of its campus for a new research laboratory to Merck for 75 years and approximately $50 million. The agreement made Emmanuel the only college in the country with a pharmaceutical lab on campus.^[8]

At the same time, Emmanuel started admitting men, enrolling its first undergraduate male students in 2001. The financially stabilizing alliance with Merck permitted Emmanuel to begin building new dorms and buying back buildings it had sold in leaner times.^{[citation needed]} Going co-ed and improving the campus sparked a sustained revival that made Emmanuel one of the fastest-growing colleges in New England at that time.^{[citation needed]}Emmanuel’s building plan also included the Jean Yawkey Student Center, which opened in 2004 as the first new building on campus in 35 years.^[9] That same year, Merck opened its 12-story facility, with a glass facade visible over the college’s main quad and English Gothic buildings.^{[citation needed]}

The college administration used the windfall to secure millions in federal science grants to fund construction of a $50 million science center. The Maureen Murphy Wilkens Science Center opened in fall 2009, effectively doubling the academic space of the campus. The Wilkens Center is four floors and 47,500 feet and contains faculty/student research space and offices, student study areas, new classrooms for all academic areas, 120 underground parking spaces, as well as teaching laboratories for Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics.^[10]

Overall enrollment tripled following these changes^{[citation needed]}, though by 2007 male enrollment declined to about 25% of the student body following an initial surge that had followed when it went co-ed ^[11]

In 2016, Julie Hall was torn down to make way for a new apartment-style 18-floor residence hall. Built for a cost of $140 million, the cost of the project was the same as Emmanuel’s total endowment. The resulting residence hall, opened in 2018, provides 692 beds of apartment-style housing to upper-class Emmanuel students and approximately 250 students from nearby Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, generating additional revenue.^[12]

Emmanuel College celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2019. In…