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'Goucher College' is a co-educational liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre (1.2 km²) campus. The school has approximately 1,350 students studying in 33 undergraduate subjects and about 1000 students studying in graduate subjects. It was one of the first colleges to embrace internships and allow its students to take a more individualized approach. In 2004, ''Newsweek'' called Goucher the college with the happiest students.
Recently, Goucher College has instituted a study abroad requirement—each undergraduate must complete at least one study abroad experience. To help students fulfill this requirement, the college offers a wide range of three-week "intensive courses abroad" as well as semester and year-long programs, in concert with vouchers to subsidize the costs.

Contents

History

Campus demographics

Academics

Undergraduate level

Graduate level

Certificate and continuing education programs

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

Other programs on campus

Notable alumni

References

External links

History

The school was founded in 1885 as a women's college, by Methodist ministers Dr. John Goucher and John B. Van Meter, with the assistance of Goucher's wife Mary Cecilia Fisher Goucher. Originally called ''The Woman's College of Baltimore'', the school was renamed in 1910 in honor of its founding members and benefactors.^[1]
The original campus was in the southern part of what is now the Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore City. Goucher moved to its present suburban location in 1953. The college has been co-educational since 1986.

Campus demographics

Female students still predominate on the undergraduate level at about 67%, a fact partially vestigial from Goucher's days as a women-only college, but also probably a result of Goucher's dance program and equestrian facilities. This number is even higher at the graduate level, where almost 80% of the students are female. About 11.5% of the undergraduate population are either African-American, Asian, Hispanic or Native-American. At the graduate level the number is 14%. Two of the most popular majors are Communications and Psychology. Politically, most students lean towards the Democratic side of the spectrum. [1] U.S. News and World Report ranked Goucher college #94 in its annual rankings of national liberal arts colleges, tied with Augustana College in Illinois, Hanover College in Indiana, Hope College in Michigan, Washington and Jefferson in Pennsylvania, and Wells College in Upstate New York. Its most well-known faculty members include Dr. Jean H. Baker and Dr. Julie Roy Jeffery of the History Department, President Sanford Ungar, and the writer Madison Smartt Bell, who oversees the college's Kratz Center for Creative Writing. Goucher is one of forty schools profiled in the book Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope.

Academics

Undergraduate level

Goucher requires its students to complete general education requirements in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and the arts. There are special introductory courses for freshmen to orient them to the campus as well as college life at Goucher. Undergraduate students are also expected to fulfill an off campus learning requirement either through an internship or a study-abroad experience. A popular choice among many Goucher students is to participate in a "three week intensive" course abroad made up of an on-campus classroom component followed by three weeks abroad during the winter or spring. Goucher also allows students to participate in semester and year long study-abroad programs offered by other schools. Goucher recently announced that starting with the class of 2010 all students will be required to have at least one study-abroad experience in order to graduate, thus making it one of the first colleges to require such an experience of its students. Goucher is well-known for its creative writing, dance,pre-med, and peace studies departments.

Graduate level

Goucher offers the following graduate programs:

★ Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction

★ Master of Arts in Historic Preservation

★ Master of Arts in Arts Administration

★ Master of Arts in Teaching

★ Master of Education
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Certificate and continuing education programs

★ Historic Preservation Certificate Program

★ Post-Baccalaureate Premed Program (having a 96% acceptance rate to medical school over its entire history)

★ Teacher's Institute

★ Educational Technology Certificate

Extracurricular activities

Goucher offers many student-run clubs in different areas such as the French club, the theater club the philosophy club, a pirate club, and a student-labor action committee. It has a bi-weekly school newspaper called the Quindecim, a literary arts journal called Vagabond and a student-run quarterly newsmagazine called The Goucher Review. Also notable is Goucher Student Radio, which contains a host of student, staff, and faculty programming and expands each year. It is accessible through Goucher's website as streaming media.

Athletics

Goucher competes in NCAA Division III, fielding mens' and womens' teams in lacrosse, soccer, basketball, track and field, cross country, swimming, and tennis, as well as women's teams in field hockey, volleyball, and equestrian sports. In 2007 the college joined the Landmark Conference after competing as a member of the Capital Athletic Conference from 1991 to 2007.

Other programs on campus

Goucher has served as a campus for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth summer program for gifted students.

Notable alumni

★ Jean H. Baker, historian and professor

★ Mildred Dunnock, Oscar-nominated film and stage actress

★ Jonah Goldberg, American conservative commentator

★ Sarah T. Hughes, federal judge

★ Georgeanna Seegar Jones, reproductive endocrinologist

★ Alice Kessler-Harris, historian and professor

★ Judy Lewent, EVP and CFO of Merck

★ Sandra Magsamen, art therapist

★ Margot Perot, nee Birmingham, wife of Ross Perot

★ Hortense Powdermaker, anthropologist

★ Florence Siebert, American scientist

★ Darcey Steinke, writer

References

1. Goucher College, ''The Baltimore Sun'', August 29, 2002

External links

★ Goucher College

★ The Quindecim