History
MCLA was founded in 1894 as North Adams Normal School, and it offered first instruction at post-secondary level three years later. In 1932, North Adams Normal School became State Teachers College of North Adams. Along with the name change, it added an upper-division curriculum and awarded the first degree (baccalaureate). Four years later, the school instituted an upper-graduate program. In 1960, the college changed its name to North Adams State College and, later in 1997, to Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the latter name reflecting its position as the public liberal arts college within the Massachusetts state university system.
In 2004, President Mary Grant initiated collaborations with other institutions to strengthen MCLA's leadership position. The college launched the Berkshire Compact for Higher Education and MCLA Gallery 51. MCLA also is the lead partner in the Berkshire STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Pipeline Network.
In 2008, Governor Deval Patrick signed the Higher Education Bond Bill that includes $54.5 million for a new Center for Science and Innovation at MCLA.
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts College Of Liberal Arts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)