Mills College - Oakland, CA
Posted by: 
DougK
N 37° 46.963 W 122° 11.258
10S E 571534 N 4182018
Located in Oakland, California, Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men.
Waymark Code: WM7F5M
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 10/17/2009
Views: 3
Excerpts from the Mills College
web site:
Founded in 1852 as the Young Ladies’ Seminary in Benicia, California, Mills College boasts a rich history as a leader in women’s education. Mills was founded two years after California was admitted to statehood and the same year the city of Oakland was established. The University of California and Stanford had yet to exist, and miners, farmers, and merchants wanted to educate their daughters without sending them on the perilous journey to East Coast schools.
The Young Ladies’ Seminary was established by nine citizens in what became the state capital, and it gained a strong reputation under the direction of Oberlin graduate Mary Atkins. With a vision of equal education and opportunity for women, missionaries Cyrus and Susan Mills bought the Seminary in 1865 for $5,000, renamed it Mills College, and moved it in 1871 to its current 135-acre oasis. At the time, Oakland was a bustling metropolis of about 10,000.
The student body quickly grew, with students of diverse faiths and backgrounds enrolled from many states and countries. Among the first institutions for the higher education of women, Mills has become the oldest women’s college west of the Rockies.
Over the decades, Mills “firsts” have been numerous: the first women's college west of the Rockies (chartered 1885); the first laboratory school west of the Mississippi for aspiring teachers (1926); the first women’s college to offer a computer science major (1974) and a 4+1 MBA degree (2001); the first business school in the West for women (2005); and the first MFA program in book art and creative writing in the nation (2009).
Always a leader in the arts, Mills was among the first liberal arts colleges to offer a modern dance degree (1941), and it became the national center for modern dance outside New York City. The Center for Contemporary Music, dedicated in 1967, is a preeminent center for electronic music.
Excerpts from
Wikipedia:
For 2009–10, Mills enrolled a total of 1,510 students, 926 of whom are undergraduates and 584 of whom are graduate students (81% of whom are women). Seventy-eight percent of undergraduate women and 83% of graduate students are from California, and more than half live on campus. Forty-eight states are represented, and international students enrolled from 11 different countries.
The 135-acre campus is located in the foothills of Oakland on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay.
In 1904, Mills president Susan Mills became interested in architect Julia Morgan because she wished to further the career of a female architect and because Morgan, just beginning her career, charged less than her male counterparts. Two of the six buildings Morgan designed for the Mills campus are the Margaret Carnegie Library, named after Andrew Carnegie's daughter and the El Campanil, believed to be the first bell tower on a United States college campus and also the first reinforced concrete structure on the west coast.