Ivy halls adorn valley landscape

By Kathleen Norton
Poughkeepsie Journal

Saturdays found the City of Poughkeepsie teenager dissecting frogs, experimenting with DNA and holograms, and doing other various science experiments in the laboratories on the Vassar College campus in the Town of Poughkeepsie.

‘‘It wasn’t like what you do in high school. It was real college stuff,’’ said Owens, who became a full-fledged student this fall at Duke University in North Carolina.

Owens and 17 other Poughkeepsie High School students took part in the Vassar Science Scholars program, which gives teenagers who excel in math and science a chance to do ‘‘real college stuff,’’ as Owens said.

It’s just one of dozens of examples of how the area’s nine colleges — four public and five private — are good neighbors, as well as thriving centers of learning that draw students and attention from around the world.

Within an hour’s drive from Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh to Bard College in northern Dutchess County’s Annandale, courses run the gamut. Students learn the fine art of making French pastry at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. At Vassar, they participate in field work that analyzes and tries to solve inner city problems of the neighboring City of Poughkeepsie. They study sophisticated computer courses at Marist College. Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point learn how to be engineers and lead soldiers. They study nursing and teaching at Mount St. Mary’s and philosophy and art at Bard.

The colleges in the region have interesting and varied histories.

Vassar was founded by Poughkeepsie brewer Matthew Vassar, who had little formal education himself but was later influenced by the women’s rights advocates of the 1800s. The school has maintained its traditional liberal arts mission, but the curriculum has become much more global with an emphasis on students’ understanding cultures in other parts of the world.

Bard and Marist, in the Town of Poughkeepsie, began as centers of religious training. The state University of New York at New Paltz, also liberal arts, is one of the 100 oldest colleges in the country, having been founded as a school for the classics in 1828.

More than half a century ago, Brother Paul Ambrose Fontaine began studying to become a Marist brother. As a young seminarian at the Poughkeepsie site, he helped grow fruits and vegetables, raise animals and construct the school’s chapel and other buildings.

‘‘We were self-sufficient,’’ he said.

The seminarians traded farm goods for services, and were sometimes called out of bed by a local hospital in the middle of the night to donate blood in the days before modern blood banks.

Later, Brother Paul Ambrose became founding president of Marist College.

Women’s school opens doors

Vassar’s first class in 1865 had 353 students, including a Civil War widow, and the majority of faculty were women. Total fees were $350, compared to today’s total bill of about $30,000. For years it remained a place of study for rich young women, as one of the so-called ‘‘Seven Sisters,’’ the equivalent of a female Ivy League. Today, Vassar has 2,270 students, about 60 percent female. During the latter part of this century, the school focused on admitting a more socially and economically diverse student body.

The pioneer flavor of Brother Paul Ambrose’s stories are a stark contrast to the comforts, modern facilities and whirlwind of construction projects found by today’s Marist students, and by students at the region’s other colleges, including Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie and Ulster Community College in Stone Ridge.

The campuses, like those across the U.S, are in fierce competition for a growing pool of college students.

If the price tags on college expansion projects are any indication, the future of these campuses is secure.

Together, the region’s colleges are spending more than $150 million on capital projects. Libraries with sophisticated computer systems, student centers, cultural centers and dormitories are on the boards. Vassar and Marist are spending $20 million each on major library projects, both expected to be completed soon.

At Bard College, a $28 million performing arts center is planned, designed by well-known architect Frank O. Gehry. At DCC, construction of a new science and arts building is under way. And the Culinary Institute is planning a $4.5 million retail baking and pastry facility.

The projects are to keep the campuses competitive as they recruit students who expect modern facilities, as well as curriculums that give them an edge in the job market, said college officials.

Norman Fainstein, dean of Vassar faculty, said the main change in the school’s mission is that a liberal arts graduate today must be able to understand far more about places beyond their own country.

‘‘There’s a much greater capability for understanding other cultures than there was a generation ago,’’ he said.

Students’ goals have also changed, noted Elizabeth Daniels, Vassar historian and former dean of students. She was an exception when she graduated from Vassar half a century ago because she was career-oriented.

‘‘A graduate in the 1930s would not have had at the top of her list an MBA and becoming an executive. She would have had in mind raising a family and volunteer work in the community,’’ Daniels said.

At Marist, the story is the same. While the campus is a far cry from the almost pioneer atmosphere described by Brother Paul Ambrose, Marist continues to maintain the community service tradition found in its mission statement.

While thousands of students inhabit the campuses each fall and spring semesters, the institutions affect the lives of those who live full-time just beyond campus boundaries.

Students give back

The community service spirit of the schools is as evident as the construction projects.

Students serve up lunch at local soup kitchens and help local children learn to read. Eleven Marist students spent spring break this year doing volunteer work in a poor Mexican town as part of the school’s Public Praxis program.

In Ulster County last year, about 100 SUNY New Paltz students gave 14,000 hours of community service through the AmeriCorps grant program. They received a voucher to use toward tuition in exchange.

The Poughkeepsie Institute, a cooperative of six local colleges, uses students to tackle a real-life social problems, such as the effects of welfare reform and the problems faced by Mexican immigrants to this region.

Local campus events bring world famous authors, musicians and entertainers to the region.

Programs abound like the Vassar one attended by Leah Jones. The Dutchess Academy of Environmental Studies teams DCC with the Dutchess Board of Cooperative Educational Services. High school students spend half of each day doing environmental research at the Norrie Point Environmental Center in Staatsburg. They get college credits from schools committed to keeping up with education trends that call for specialized, job-ready skills from students coming out of liberal arts schools.

As for the future, Fainstein said that as long as the world changes, so will some of the content of a liberal arts education. Computers and modern technology will mix even more with more traditional subjects in the future.

‘‘One thing we know from all the surveys done of CEOs, is that the way to get to the top is to get a firm liberal arts education so you can grow in response to a changing world,’’ Fainstein said.

Vassar historian Daniels believes nobody really knows what higher education will mean years from now.

‘‘Who knows? When we land on Mars in droves, the notion might change of what education should be,’’ she said.