Home Graduate Catalog 2016-2017 Manhattanville College Mission

Manhattanville College Mission

The mission of Manhattanville College is to educate students to be ethical and socially-responsible leaders in a global community.

We are committed to:

Ensuring the intellectual, ethical and social development of each student within a community of engaged scholars and teachers.
Encouraging each student to develop as an independent and creative thinker in pursuing career and personal goals.
Providing a diverse, inclusive and nurturing environment which develops in each student a commitment to service and leadership within a global community.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Policy

Manhattanville College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, gender, and disability in its programs or activities. This policy applies to access to all activities and programs under the College sponsorship, as well as to application and selection for admission, employment, and all other personal procedures within the College.

Consistent with the requirements of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as amended, and Part 86 of 45 C.F.R., Manhattanville College does not discriminate on the basis of gender in the conduct of its education programs or activities (including employment therein and admission thereto). Inquiries concerning the application of Title IX and Part 86 of 45 C.F.R. may be referred to the Director, Office of Civil Rights (Region II), 26 Federal Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10007.

Brief History of Manhattanville: History and Educational Commitment

Manhattanville’s tradition is based on an educational heritage that fosters the free exchange of ideas between students and teachers within the context of challenging academic programs. Through this exchange, the College encourages the development of human values and a view of society as a community requiring each person’s support. A liberal arts education at Manhattanville seeks to cultivate the growth of conscience as well as intellect – the ability both to reach personal moral decisions by the use of reason and understanding and the courage to defend these convictions. The many alumni who have become successful teachers and leaders testify to the usefulness of the College’s definition of a liberal arts education.

The College began as the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a school for girls founded on Houston Street in New York City in 1841. It was one of a worldwide network of schools maintained by the religious congregation founded in France in 1800 with the name of Society of the Sacred Heart. Like its sister schools, the Academy accepted pupils ranging in age from the elementary grades through high school. After the 12th grade, two more years were added (the so-called superior classes), which prepared students for independent work and allowed a wider choice of subjects. The last two years of undergraduate work were added in 1917 and the institution was chartered by the State of New York as a college for women – with the new name, Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. Still committed to the values that shaped its founders’ belief in the liberal arts, the College became coeducational in 1971 and independent of the Society of the Sacred Heart after 1971.

Changes in the nature of the institution did not take place without corresponding changes in locale. The success of the school in the 1840's was such that a larger area was needed and Houston Street was abandoned for the salubrious air of Astoria. This place, too, quickly proved too small and the Lorillard Estate north of the present 125th Street on the upper West Side was purchased. In 1847 this was a rural area; gentlemen’s estates and small farms were its characteristic features and the district was known as Manhattanville, hence the name of the modern College. As the College and the city grew, better conditions for the largely residential student body became necessary. After one hundred and five years another move in 1952 brought the College to Purchase, New York, just 25 miles north of New York City, to the property formerly owned by the Whitelaw Reid family.

The long tradition of the school, which preceded the College charter, determined the character the College would have: a firm belief in the liberalizing effect of the liberal arts, a lively sense of tradition, a wide-ranging interest in the most humane manifestations of the human spirit, a continuing effort to enhance the local community and to accept responsibility for this segment of human history. These forces are alive today on the College campus. It is the challenge of students and faculty to keep them active, to translate them into terms which can be effective in a world remade and reinterpreted by science and technology, and, perhaps, threatened by the very success of human ingenuity.

Manhattanville College's mission is to educate students to become ethically and socially responsible leaders for the global community. Manhattanville continues to dedicate itself to the values of the College founders: academic excellence and a deep respect for intellectual values; development of the whole person, mind, body and spirit in an atmosphere of responsible freedom; the building of a caring, compassionate, nurturing community founded on mutual respect and accountability for individual actions; a special commitment to social awareness; and a moral obligation to educate our students about the role they can play in improving their community and world around them.

By its successful pursuit of its mission, the College believes that good human values will be fostered, respect for one’s self and for others will be encouraged and its graduates will be enabled by both their training and vision to assist and to improve their world.

Manhattanville College Mission Statement

Our mission: to educate students to become ethically and socially responsible leaders for the global community.

We are committed to doing that by:

Ensuring the intellectual, ethical and social development of each student within a community of engaged scholars and teachers;

Encouraging each student to apply his or her development as an independent leader and creative thinker to career and personal goals; and

Providing a diverse campus community whose members know, care about and support each other and actively engage the community beyond.

School of Education Mission Statement

The Mission of the Manhattanville College School of Education, inspired by the College Mission statement, is to educate candidates to become ethically and socially responsible teachers and school leaders for participation in the educational community.

We are committed to doing that by:

1. Ensuring the intellectual, ethical and social development of each candidate within a community of engaged scholars, teachers and school leaders. We are committed to developing our candidates’ capacities in the following two domains of competence:

a. Learning and teaching: candidates’ teaching is based on knowledge, learning theories and best practices, family and community influences as well as local, state and national standards.

b. Liberal arts: candidates understand the importance of demonstrating mastery of literacy on two levels – a broad base of content knowledge necessary to support student learning and solid literacy skills that include reading, writing, speaking and listening.

2. Encouraging each candidate to apply his or her development as an independent leader and creative thinker to career and personal goals. We are committed to promoting in our candidates the following domain of competence:

a. Professionalism: candidates are committed to being leaders in the educational community.

3. Providing a diverse campus community whose members know, care about and support each other and actively engage the community beyond. We are committed to developing our candidates’ capacities in the following two domains of competence:

a. Diverse learners: candidates understand and meet the varying needs and interests of each student with sensitivity to racial, ethnic, socio-economic, ability and gender differences.

b. Family, school and community: candidates value and recognize the importance of being informed by the community to support student learning.

Through professional and collaborative teaching, research and self-governance, in cooperation with Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty, and in partnership with local educational agencies, we will model intellectual and ethical individual and institutional practice for our candidates.

Letter to Students

July, 2016

Dear Graduate Student in the School of Education,

Welcome to the outstanding Manhattanville College NCATE-accredited School of Education!

While programs in the School of Education are the oldest graduate programs at Manhattanville College (beginning in 1965), in a very real sense, the programs are much older than that. Manhattanville was established by the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1841. That Catholic organization dates back to the years after the French Revolution, when Sister Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the order with the goal of educating young women as a way of inoculating them against extremist ideologies, specifically terrorist ideologies like the "Reign of Terror" imposed on France by Robespierre, in which thousands of innocent people lost their lives.

Though Manhattanville College has been nonsectarian and coeducational for many years, the basic values of its founders --dialogue, relationships, communication and networks, community life, and education--have only gained in urgency in recent years. So, in a very real sense, Manhattanville College and its mission were built around the mission of the School of Education.

In recent years, the "Changing Suburbs Institute®" in our School of Education has been recognized for its national leadership by the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics. This past year it was one of 8 "Bright Spots" for Hispanic Education in America. The School of Education was also listed in 8th place in a national survey of the 50 Top Education Graduate Programs in the country, ahead of (among others) Teachers College and NYU.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of our School of Education is an emphasis on an experiential approach to learning, putting students in real-life classroom situations at a very early stage. For professionals who intend to take the next step in their career, we have graduate programs in Educational Leadership, including a nationally recognized doctoral program, preparing you for work in both PreK-12 schools and, more recently, higher education leadership positions such as student affairs offices, one of the fastest-growing employment opportunities in the country. Our biggest asset, however, is our faculty, every one of them a highly qualified teacher-scholar with a deep interest in their students’ success.

Manhattanville College