A Look into Vassar Science | The evolution of Vassar’s science programs

Erica Hersh Guest Writer

This is part three of a four-part series. To see the previous two articles, visit misc.vassar.edu. The fourth part, which explores science students’ preparation for graduate school, will appear in next week’s issue.

In 1848, the Academy of Arts and Science accepted its first female member, a woman who had recently discovered the comet that now bears her name. She was also the first woman elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the American Philosophical Society. Vassar students, however, may know her better as the namesake of the Maria Mitchell Observatory, also known as the Old Observatory.

The tenure of Maria Mitchell, the first faculty member hired at Vassar, the discoverer of a comet, the namesake of a crater on the moon and generally one of the most distinguished female scientists of all time, was only the beginning of Vassar’s strong science programs. In the 142 years since Mitchell was first hired, Vassar has continued to produce distinguished scientists, thanks to a curriculum that has emphasized science since its inception.

At the time of the College’s founding, the Observatory was the only building on campus besides Main Building, but even then, Vassar was committed to science programs other than astronomy. According to Vassar College Historian Elizabeth Daniels ’41, “Matthew Vassar wanted science for women equal to science for men,” and so he set up a demanding program with many resources.

Housed in Main were chemistry and geology labs, “cabinets of natural history” with specimens relevant to all courses of study, and even a museum of natural history, perfect for “natural philosophy” classes. While arithmetic was the only math or science class required for this first group of women, students could elect to take any of the 10 other science classes that Vassar offered.

By 1890, just 25 years later, the science program at Vassar had greatly expanded along with the general curriculum. All the original labs and museums remained, but physics and chemistry were given their own building, and students could stay at the College for graduate programs in natural history, chemistry, physics, math and astronomy. Ignoring the stereotype that women were weak and too sensitive to be rational, Vassar even put together an anatomy lab for its students, complete with skeletons, a dissectible mannequin and hundreds of specimens that they could study.

The growth of science at Vassar didn’t stop in the 19th century. By 1920, the College had built Sanders Laboratory for chemistry and the New England Building to house biology, physiology and geology. The Vassar Brothers Laboratory provided space for the other sciences. The natural sciences department split into zoology and botany (with a few general biology classes), a change that persisted until the College built Olmsted Hall in 1973. The 1920s also saw the beginning of the psychology department, which is one of Vassar’s most popular majors today.

Urged on by Minnie Cumnok Blodgett, an alumna and the namesake of Blodgett Hall, Vassar established a euthenics department in 1924 to study how external factors such as education and environment can improve the human condition. Euthenics became such a popular major that Blodgett Hall was built to house it. Interest eventually waned, but the child study department continued to be a separate major until 1965, when it was integrated into the psychology department.

By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, the science program at Vassar included a summer study program at Wood’s Hole, field work at the Dutchess County Outdoor Ecological Lab and a physiology lab that stored a preserved fetus and organs to students to study, a very progressive concept at the time. The entire curriculum was revised for the 1942-43 school year to accommodate the United States’ involvement in Europe and the Pacific. For example, students had the option of graduating in fewer than four years if they planned to go on to help the war effort. While many course lists were changed, a survey by the College found that the natural sciences, then the largest division, were more than adequate to prepare Vassar women to aid their country.

According to the 1950 course catalogue, “In general, the introductory science courses are planned to meet the needs of both students whose gifts lie in other fields and yet who should have these new insights, and of students who will make science the focus of their programs.” In order to reach both of these groups, the College required all students to take one course in biological science (such as zoology and botany) and one course in physical science (such as astronomy and chemistry). It also added pre-engineering and pre-medical programs, which joined pre-teaching as Vassar’s only pre-professional programs.

After Olmsted was completed in 1973, biology was a cohesive, independent major, and each science had its own building and library, greatly strengthening the science program at Vassar. Though the social sciences had the largest numbers of majors and continue to be the largest to this day, the natural science division has continued to expand through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs such as biochemistry and neuroscience and behavior (formerly known as biopsychology). Vassar was also the first institution to offer an undergraduate degree in the multidisciplinary program of cognitive science, founded in 1982.

“It has been really gratifying to see that pay-off in the growth of programs at other institutions,” said founding member of the cognitive science program Professor of Psychology Ken Livingston in the Feb. 7 issue of The Miscellany News. “We were the only place doing this in 1982, and now we have lots of company. I like to think that our success here had at least a little bit to do with that.”

Even if Vassar is better known for the liberal arts than the sciences, a Vassar education has given rise to many prominent scientists, such as Vera Cooper Rubin ’48, the astronomer who discovered the most substantial evidence of the existence of dark matter. In other fields, Vassar boasts Bernadine Healy ’65, former head of both the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross, and Ellen Swallow Richards from the Class of 1870, coiner of the word “ecology,” environmental chemist and first woman admitted to any science or technology school in the United States. Eben Ostby ’77 co-created the animation system used in Toy Story.

These and countless other Vassar alumnae/i have made significant contributions to various scientific fields. They have benefited from Vassar’s longstanding commitment to science education, and as more and more students graduate, it is likely that many new names will be added to this list of illustrious Vassar science alumnae/i.