Stories

Dec. 18, 2019

The Vassar community witnessed some remarkable events and achievements in 2019. Here are some of the highlights:

Dec. 13, 2019

Vassar alumna Diana Pearson ’78 has donated more than 80 manuscripts and other material from her late husband’s rare book and manuscript collection to Special Collections at Thompson Library. Some students in a medieval history class spent an hour viewing one of the manuscripts, and more students and scholars will benefit from the generous donation in the future.

Dec. 4, 2019

More than 300 students and 130 alumnae/i gathered on the campus November 16 for Major Palooza, a day-long event in which Vassar grads shared information and advice on how they had parlayed their liberal arts education into rewarding careers.

Nov. 21, 2019

Students in a first-year writing seminar learn how modern X-ray technology helps art historians study paintings that are more than five centuries old.

Nov. 18, 2019

Alumnae/i, students, faculty, staff, and community members gathered for the Larry H. Mamiya Memorial Conference Celebrating 50 Years of Africana Studies at Vassar College in early November. Several alumnae who participated in the three-day occupation of Main Building in 1969, widely credited for helping to secure support for the college’s new Black Studies program, were in attendance.

Nov. 1, 2019

From November 1 to November 3, the college will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the program with a conference, “Africana Studies and the Future of Freedom.” The event will feature noted scholars, current and former faculty and staff, and current and former students—including some who helped create the program 50 years ago.

Sep. 16, 2019

Vassar debuted an inaugural program in China this summer, partnering with a secondary school for gifted students in Beijing who took courses taught by Vassar faculty grounded in the college’s liberal arts model.

Aug. 27, 2019

Learning that setbacks are an integral part of research, about 60 Vassar students took part in projects this summer on the auspices of the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) and Ford Scholars programs.

Jul. 30, 2019

In conjunction with a New York-based social impact investment firm, the family and friends of educator Dan Mindich ’87, who died in 2014, will donate $2.25 million to Vassar, contingent on $1.25 million in matching funds, to help the college continue to provide training and mentoring for Vassar students planning to become teachers.

May. 24, 2019

Savannah Smith ’19, Nicholas Gedigk ’19 and five recent alums will teach or do research in a total of six countries on three continents as recipients of 2019 Fulbright Scholarships.

May. 17, 2019

Vassar’s 14th annual robotics competition featured a modified version of Harry Potter’s favorite game, Quidditch.

May. 16, 2019

Emily Janoski ’20 and three of her friends recently spent an entire weekend crunching data about the Canadian Rugby 7s Senior Women’s Team—and they weren’t alone in this curious pursuit. At DataFest, an annual event for statistics and data science aficionados in colleges around the country, about 60 Vassar students and more than 2,000 others analyzed the same information.

Apr. 18, 2019

Vassar’s Russian Studies students have always scored high in the New York State Competition of Spoken and Written Russian. This year was no exception.

Apr. 5, 2019

Julie Morel ’19 plans to become a midwife. But before she begins her three years of formal training, she’ll travel the world examining the roles that culture, religion, spirituality and family play in maternity care in four diverse nations.

Apr. 5, 2019

“Quiet as It’s Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities,” a scholarly conference on “passing,” held April 5-7 on the Vassar College campus, advanced the dialog about racial, ethnic, and gender identity in substantial ways.

Mar. 28, 2019

Students in a Medieval and Renaissance Studies Class spent a morning hurling balls of clay at a kiddie pool, learning the workings of a medieval weapon, a trebuchet.

Mar. 25, 2019

Professor of Psychological Science Debra Zeifman talks about her appointment as Dean of Studies.

Mar. 8, 2019

Vassar College to launch a summer program for gifted high school students in Beijing, China, in partnership with a Beijing-based education organization. Three faculty members will teach courses there this summer.

Jan. 21, 2019

The National Institute of Mental Health has awarded a $331,000 grant to Assistant Professor Psychological Science Bojana Zupan to continue her research into the possible causes of autism and similar disorders.

Dec. 14, 2018

Vassar Assistant Professor Colette Salyk and 25 other astronomers have published a paper announcing they have gathered new evidence about how planets are forming in other parts of the galaxy. The discovery sheds light on how our own solar system was formed.