Claremont Colleges
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The Claremont Colleges are a consortium of seven schools of higher education located in Claremont, California. Unlike most other collegiate consortiums, such as the Five Colleges Consortium in Massachusetts and the Tri-College Consortium in Pennsylvania, the Claremont College campuses are adjoining and within reasonable walking distance of one another. The purpose of the consortium is to provide the specialization, flexibility and personal attention commonly found in a small college, with the resources of a large university. Their compartmentalized collegiate university design was inspired by Oxford University in Britain.
According to James A. Blaisdell (1923), the creator of the Claremont Colleges, "My own very deep hope is that instead of one great, undifferentiated university, we might have a group of institutions divided into small colleges-somewhat of an Oxford type-around a library and other utilities which they would use in common. In this way I should hope to preserve the inestimable personal values of the small college while securing the facilities of the great university."
The colleges have a tradition of being selective in their admittance and all are consistently ranked among the best schools in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that the five undergraduate Claremont colleges are the "intellectual capital of the western world," a statement that, for good or ill, appears in many college guides.
List of the Claremont Colleges
The five undergraduate colleges are:
- Claremont McKenna College, specializing in economics, business, international relations and public affairs, but maintaining a broad set of majors, including the sciences, psychology, and literature
- Harvey Mudd College, specializing in science and engineering while maintaining a liberal-arts tradition
- Pitzer College, specializing in social and behavioral sciences, with particular emphases on social responsibility, interdisciplinary and intercultural understanding
- Pomona College, specializing in the liberal arts and humanities
- Scripps College, a women's college specializing in the liberal arts and humanities, noted for its foreign language and psychology departments.
The two graduate universities are:
- Claremont Graduate University
- Keck Graduate Institute, a biomedical graduate school
Shared facilities, programs, and resources
Each college is independent, but large or expensive facilities and programs are shared.
Shared academic departments include the Intercollegiate Women's Studies Center, the Intercollegiate Department of Black Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Religious Studies, and the Five-College Theater Department.
Shared intercollegiate programs include the European Union Center of California, the Chicano/Latino Student Affairs Center, the Office of Black Student Affairs, the Office of the Chaplains, Hillel, the Asian American Resource Center, the Queer Recource Center, and the Women's Union. The colleges also coordinate budgets and course schedules to allow for cross-registration.
Shared facilities include the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges, Campus Safety, the Tranquada Student Services Center (which houses Baxter Medical Center, Monsour Counseling Center, and the Health Education Outreach,) McAlister Center (home of the Office of the Chaplains), Huntley Bookstore, all dining facilites and several sports facilities.
The oldest 5-college student newspaper is The Collage, and is wholly independent from the colleges.
In addition, three of the Claremont Colleges, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, and Pitzer College, share a single, joint science program.
KSPC 88.7 FM is the non-profit community radio station associated with the Claremont Colleges. Students from the colleges host KSPC shows and help run the station.
Athletics teams from Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College compete as one team. Male athletic teams are called the Stags, and women's teams are called the Athenas. The teams participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). Pomona College and Pitzer College compete together in the SCIAC. Their team is called the Sagehens.
In addition to the Stag/Atheneas and the Sagehens, there are several prominent 5-college club sports teams, including men's and women's rugby, both of whom attended Division II nationals in 2006, men's lacrosse, field hockey, crew, cycling, women's ultimate frisbee (Greenshirts) who attended college nationals in 2004, and men's ultimate frisbee (Braineaters) who were ranked 26th in the nation in 2006, missing their chance at nationals by one game against UCSB.
Administration
All seven Claremont Colleges are served by the Claremont University Consortium.
External Links
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