History
Growing out of the Veteran’s Vocational School in downtown Troy, New York, the college was founded in 1953 as the Hudson Valley Technical Institute. Initially, the role of the college was to provide practical hands-on vocational training for veterans returning from World War II. Dwight Marvin, editor of the Troy Record, was one of several community leaders who pressed to create a broader mission for the college, which in 1959 would be officially known as Hudson Valley Community College. Marvin served as the first chairman of the college’s Board of Trustees.
The college initially was housed in the former Earl and Williams shirt collar factory building at Broadway and Seventh Avenue, but by 1955, the board of trustees was already looking for a larger location to site a campus. The trustees surveyed likely sites for a new campus and in 1956 announced that the Williams farm, which straddled the Troy-North Greenbush border, would be the chosen site.
The new campus was initially opposed by a group of Rensselaer County taxpayers, who argued that the county should not have to pay for half the cost of the campus construction if fewer than half the students were county residents. What would became a landmark case for community colleges in New York State eventually was heard by the state’s Court of Appeals. On June 25, 1958, the court upheld the county’s right to fund half of the cost of construction and paved the way for capital construction at community colleges around the state. The new campus, with five Indiana limestone buildings, was completed in 1961 and the former factory building was abandoned and eventually torn down.
Read more about this topic: Hudson Valley Community College
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)