page_title: Marymount Manhattan College
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Marymount Manhattan College / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Marymount Manhattan College
context_page_description: Marymount Manhattan College is a private liberal arts college in New York City on the Upper East Side. Enrollment consists of 2,069 undergraduates, with women making up 75% and men 25%.
context_section_description: Marymount Manhattan College was founded in 1936 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary as a two-year women's college and a New York City extension of Marymount College, Tarrytown in Tarrytown, New York. In 1948, the College moved to its present location on East 71st Street and became a four-year bachelor degree-granting college; the first class graduated from MMC in 1950. In 1961, MMC was granted an absolute charter as an independent four-year college by the Regents of the University of the State of New York.
  Since 1961, Marymount Manhattan has been an independent, private college open to all creeds, while noting its foundation by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.  While the college no longer described itself as Catholic, the Catholic Church continued to list it in the Catholic Directory until 2005.  Unaware that the college did not claim to be a Catholic school, the Cardinal Newman Society protested the college's announcement of its decision to invite then-Senator Hillary Clinton to deliver a commencement address and to confer an honorary doctoral degree upon her, due to Senator Clinton's longtime public support for abortion rights. In response to the protests and without objection by the college, it was de-listed from "The Official Catholic Directory," which identifies Catholic institutions.
  In 1976, Finch College, a women's college best known as a "finishing school" for affluent young women, closed and passed its records over to the school. The school was most famous for educating Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of former US President Richard Nixon.
  In 2001, the College opened the 55th Street Residence Hall, one of the tallest dorms in the United States, with 32 floors of student housing in a 46-story building. In 2015, Marymount Manhattan opened a second residence hall for upperclassmen located in Cooper Square, a 12 story building to house 270 students
  In 2017, just under 2,000 students were enrolled representing 48 U.S. states and 36 countries. In conjunction with its core liberal arts curriculum, Marymount Manhattan offers 30 major programs of study and over 40 minors along with pre-professional programs. It is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The college offers a degree program for incarcerated women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, granting an Associates of Arts degree in Social Science and Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology.
  In 2013, the school was featured in the noted industry publication Backstage as one of the top colleges in which Broadway and Tony Award-nominated actors have trained, alongside Carnegie Mellon University, Oberlin Conservatory, University of Michigan, Ithaca College, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
  In July 2015 Kerry Walk was unanimously selected by the Trustees of Marymount Manhattan College as the school's 8th president.
caption: Marymount Manhattan College
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK DX7440 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "230", "Image YResolution": "230", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "506", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3052", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4084", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "17/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:09:20 15:56:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:09:20 15:56:07", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6", "EXIF ApertureValue": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "11/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1536", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2748", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "33", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}