Goucher College

Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre (1.2 km²) campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary programs and about 900 students studying in graduate subjects. It is the only college in the country that requires a study abroad experience.

History
In 1881, the Baltimore Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church passed a resolution to found a conference Seminary. This momentum went largely unquestioned with the first recorded objection being in 1884, when Bishop Andrews stated, "I would not give a fig for a weakling little thing of a seminary. We want such a school, so ample in its provisions, of such dignity in its buildings, so fully provided with the best apparatus, that it shall draw to itself the eyes of the community and that young people shall feel it an honor to be enrolled among its students." Methodist ministers Dr. John Goucher and John B. Van Meter fought hard in favor of founding a college rather than a seminary, eventually winning unanimous agreement at a later conference. The school was founded as "Women's College of Baltimore City" on January 26, 1885. Though students of all religious backgrounds were accepted, as founders, the Methodist Episcopal Church had a large impact on the campus.

The school was renamed in 1910 to Goucher College in honor of its founding members and benefactors. It was one of only six "Class I" women's colleges in the US.

The original campus was in the southern part of what is now the Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore City. Goucher moved to its present suburban location in 1953. The college has been co-educational since 1986. Its former home, known as the Old Goucher College Historic District, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Campus demographics
Goucher has one of the highest percentage of Jewish students in the country with 30% identifying as Jewish. Female students predominate on the undergraduate level at 65%. About 11.5% of the undergraduate population are either African-American, Asian, Hispanic or Native-American. At the graduate level, the number is about 8.5%. Two of the most popular majors are psychology and communications.

Campus
The Goucher College campus is proximate to downtown Towson, though the 287 acre campus is separated from it by surrounding woods owned by the school. The academic buildings appear generally at the north side of campus, and the residential buildings are located to the south. Most buildings are clad in tan-colored stone called Butler Stone. As a part of a recent expansion plan, a new residence hall, Welsh (a.k.a. The "T"), was built in 2005. The Athenaeum, a 100000 sqft multipurpose facility featuring an expansive modern library, was constructed in 2009. The grounds are slightly hilly and include hiking and riding trails in the woods. Newsweek magazine described the campus as "unusually bucolic".

In a marked shift away from traditional collegiate layout characterized by symmetry and quadrangles, the designing architectural firm Moore and Hutchins elected to group buildings together into informal zones based on function and took a departure from the Romanesque design of the previous campus. The notion that the design of individual buildings was less important than their interrelationships was progressive at the time. Consequently, over the years, the architecture and development of the campus has won many awards, and in 2007 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Deer population
In a fenced area with no natural predators, 200 deer roamed the wooded campus. In 2007, a biologist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources estimated the 287 acre woods as only being able to support 40 deer. Goucher's response that winter was to hire bowmen to thin the population by about 50 deer, and success of this approach has resulted in a yearly culling of the population since then. Reasons cited are to maintain the health of the remaining deer and other animals, reduce the risk of car crashes, protect landscaping and prevent the spread of Lyme disease, and the meat of the deer has been donated to local homeless shelters. Some students and community members, however, have objections to the population reduction.

Rankings and notable faculty
In 2009, U.S. News and World Report ranked Goucher college #105 in its annual rankings of national liberal arts colleges. The college's ranking has fluctuated from #93 to #111 in recent years. Its most well-known faculty members include Jean H. Baker and Julie Roy Jeffrey of the History Department; President Sanford J. Ungar; and authors Madison Smartt Bell and Elizabeth Spires, who oversee the college's Kratz Center for Creative Writing. Goucher is one of 40 schools profiled in the book Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope.

Presidents of Goucher College
Contrary to popular belief, John Goucher was not the first president of Goucher College. Although offered the post as the first president Goucher refused the honor as he wished to continue as the pastor of First Methodist Episcopal Church of Baltimore (Lovely Lane Church) and continue his deep involvement in Methodist mission work around the world.

When William Hersey Hopkins resigned as the first president to join the faculty, the board of trustees nominated Dr. Goucher for the role and voted prior to giving the right to decline the nomination. With a unanimous vote from the board, Goucher felt obligated to serve the college as its second president.

Following his retirement in 1908, his successor Eugene Noble successfully led the movement to rename the college in honor of John and Mary Fisher Goucher in recognition of their involvement in the founding of the college, amazing financial support, and Dr. Goucher's role as president for eighteen years.

Dr. Dorothy Stimson, the Dean of the College, served as acting president from January to June 1930, the first woman to lead the college. However, the board named Dr. David Robertson as the permanent president of the college who led the college through the difficult years of the Great Depression and World War II and oversaw the beginning of college's move from Baltimore City to its current location in Baltimore County.

Rhoda Dorsey is notable for many firsts: she was the first female president of Goucher College, the first acting president to be elected president, and the first faculty member of the college to be chosen as president. She also is notable for serving the longest period as Goucher's president, twenty years.

List of Presidents
William Hersey Hopkins  1886-1890

John Franklin Goucher   1890-1908

Eugene Allen Nobel      1908-1911

John Blackford Van Meter 1911-1913 (Acting President)

William Westley Guth    1913-1929

Hans Froelicher         May 1929- January 1930 (Acting President)

Dorothy Stimson         January- June 1930 (Acting President)

David Allan Robertson   1930-1948

Otto Krausharr          1948-1967

Marvin Banks Perry, Jr. 1967-1973

Rhoda Mary Dorsey       1973-1974 (Acting President) Rhoda Mary Dorsey       1974-1994

Judy Jolley Mohraz      1994-2000

Robert S. Welch         2000-2001 (Acting President)

Sanford J. Ungar        2001-Present

Undergraduate level
In fall 2006, the college launched an education curriculum that outlines requirements that reflect the core values that underpin a liberal-arts education. These include: an international experience; proficiency in English composition and in a foreign language; and solid foundations in history, abstract reasoning, scientific discovery and experimentation, problem-solving, social structures, and environmental sustainability. There are special introductory courses for freshmen to orient them to the campus, as well as college life at Goucher. Undergraduate students are required to fulfill an off-campus learning requirement either through an internship or a study-abroad experience in order to graduate. A popular choice among many Goucher students is to participate in a "three-week intensive" course abroad made up of an on-campus classroom component followed by three weeks abroad during the winter or spring. Goucher also allows students to participate in semester and yearlong study-abroad programs offered by other schools. Goucher recently announced that starting with the class of 2010 all students will be required to have at least one study-abroad experience to graduate, thus making it the first college to require such an experience of its students. Goucher is also well known for its creative writing, dance, and pre-med departments.

Graduate level
Goucher has a small but vibrant graduate program, which is run by the Welch Center for Graduate and Professional Studies. The following graduate programs are offered at the college:


 * Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability
 * Master of Arts in Digital Arts
 * Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction
 * Master of Arts in Historic Preservation
 * Master of Arts in Arts Administration
 * Master of Arts in Teaching
 * Master of Education

Certificate and continuing education programs

 * Post-Baccalaureate Premed Program (having a 96% acceptance rate to medical school over its entire history)
 * Teacher's Institute
 * Educational Technology Certificate

Extracurricular activities
Goucher offers many student-run clubs in different areas such as the Chem Club (the oldest continuously-operating club on campus), Hillel activities, and a student-labor action committee. It has a bi-weekly school newspaper called The Quindecim, and a literary arts journal called Preface. Also notable is Goucher Student Radio, which contains a host of student, staff, and faculty programming and expands each year. It is accessible through Goucher's website as streaming media. Students from the college are also credited with founding Humans vs. Zombies, a game similar to tag that is played generally on college campuses.

Athletics
Goucher athletic teams are known as the Gophers. The college competes in NCAA Division III, fielding men's and women's teams in lacrosse, soccer, basketball, track and field, cross country, swimming, and tennis, as well as women's teams in field hockey, volleyball, and coed equestrian sports (Intercollegiate Horse Show Association Zone IV Region I/American National Riding Commission). In 2007 the college joined the Landmark Conference after competing as a member of the Capital Athletic Conference from 1991 to 2007.

Other programs on campus
Goucher has served as a campus for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth summer program for gifted students.

Notable alumni

 * Hattie Alexander (class of 1923), pediatrician and microbiologist
 * Ellen Bass, (class of 1968), poet
 * Clara Beranger, (class of 1907), screenwriter and wife of William C. DeMille
 * Emily Newell Blair, an American writer, suffragist, national Democratic Party political leader, a founder of the League of Women Voters and feminist.
 * Sally Brice-O'Hara, Class of 1974, Vice Admiral and vice commandant, United States Coast Guard
 * Joan Claybrook, (class of 1959), president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader.
 * Teresa Cohen, (class of 1912), mathematician
 * Sherry Cooper, (class of 1972), economist
 * Constance Maya-Das Dass class of 1911, Phi Beta Kappa, first Indian President of Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, India from 1939-45
 * Olive Dennis, (class of 1908), railroad engineer
 * Judy Devlin Hashman, (class of 1958), 10-time All-England badminton singles champion.
 * Susan Devlin, (class of 1953), American-Irish badminton champion
 * Helen Dodson, (class of 1927), astronomer, winner of the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy
 * Mildred Dunnock, (class of 1922), Oscar-nominated film and stage actress
 * Alison Fanelli, (class of 2001), actress famous for starring as Ellen on The Adventures of Pete & Pete
 * Margaret Fishback, (class of 1921), author and poet
 * Jonah Goldberg, (class of 1991), journalist and conservative commentator
 * Margaret Irving Handy, (class of 1911), pioneering pediatrician
 * Helen C. Harrison, (class of 1931), winner of the John Howland Award and the E. Mead Johnson Award for work with her husband in pediatrics
 * Ethel Browne Harvey, embryologist
 * Karen S. Haynes, (class of 1968), President, California State University, San Marcos
 * Ellen Lipton Hollander, (class of 1971), Judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, nominee to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland
 * Sarah T. Hughes, (class of 1917), federal judge who administered the presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson
 * Anne Hummert (née. Schumacher), (class of 1925), a leading creator of daytime radio serials during the 1930s and 1940s
 * Georgeanna Seegar Jones, (class of 1932), reproductive endocrinologist
 * Alice Kessler-Harris, (class of 1961) historian and professor
 * Margaret G. Kibben, Rear Admiral, U S Navy, Chaplain of the United States Marine Corps
 * Hon. Phyllis A. Kravitch, (class of 1941), Senior Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
 * Jane Levy, actress, attended for a semester
 * Kathleen Moore Mallory, (class of 1902), Woman's Missionary Union executive and member of the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame
 * Nancy Mowll Mathews, (class of 1968), art historian
 * Florence Marie Mears, (class of 1917), mathematician
 * Sara Haardt Mencken, (class of 1920), professor of English Literature (and wife of H.L. Mencken)
 * Shirley Montag Almon, (class of 1956), economist
 * Bessie Moses, (class of 1915), contraception activist
 * Mary Vivian Pearce, (class of 1994), actress famous for working with John Waters
 * Margot Perot, then Margot Birmingham, (class of 1955) wife of Ross Perot
 * Hortense Powdermaker, (class of 1919), anthropologist
 * Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre, (class of 1908), daughter of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and political activist
 * Laura Amy Schlitz (class of 1977), author and Newbery Medal winner
 * Florence B. Seibert, (class of 1918) American biochemist
 * Rosalind Solomon, (class of 1951), artist and photographer
 * Darcey Steinke, (class of 1985), writer
 * Paula Stern, (class of 1967), former chairwoman of the United States International Trade Commission
 * Lucé Vela, (class of 1982), First Lady of Puerto Rico
 * Christopher Weed (class of 2008) and Brad Sappington (class of 2007), creators of Humans vs. Zombies
 * Eleanor Wilner, (class of 1959), poet, 1991 MacArthur Fellow
 * Jeanette Rosner Wolman, (class of 1923), lawyer and woman's rights advocate, inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 1986
 * Jean Worthley, (class of 1944), naturalist