The main entrance of the College of Mount Saint Vincent
The College of Mount Saint Vincent (CMSV) is a Catholic liberal arts college located in the northwest[3] corner of the Riverdale section of The Bronx, New York, adjacent to the Yonkers border. It is the northernmost location in New York City. It was founded by the Sisters of Charity of New York.
Today, the school serves 1,800 students, with professional undergraduate programs in nursing, business, communication, and education. In addition, the college offers a strong liberal arts undergraduate curriculum with distinctive strengths in biology, biochemistry, English, psychology, and sociology. The College also offers graduate degree programs in nursing, business, TESOL and education.
The college is the peak of the educational network under the care of the Sisters of Charity of New York, one of several Sisters of Charity congregations of Catholic women that trace their lineage back to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
College history
The college was founded in 1847 as the Academy of Mount Saint Vincent, a school for women. It took its name from Saint Vincent de Paul, the 17th Century French priest who worked with the poor and founded the original Sisters of Charity, and from the geographic high point along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan known as McGowan's Pass. When New York City began acquiring land for Central Park in 1855, the school purchased the 70-acre (280,000 m2) "Fonthill," the estate of famed Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest, in the Riverdale neighborhood of The Bronx. On April 25, 1865, the funeral train carrying Abraham Lincoln back to Springfield, Illinois passed by the College.
In 1911, the Academy became a degree-granting institution. The Campus Record, the original college newspaper, (named the Alembic in 1970) published its first issue in 1922. Just five years later, the first issue of the College's literary magazine, the Fonthill Dial, was published. The end of the decade saw the first issue of the College yearbook, the Parapet. In 1943, the College began working in conjunction with St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City to provide a nursing education program for its students.
In 1964 the Mount joined forces with the other college in Riverdale, Manhattan College in a Cooperative Program that ran until 2006. Also in 1964, the Mount granted its first degrees in Fine Arts. In 1974, the College of Mount Saint Vincent became a co-educational institution as it began admitting men. In 1976, the College Emeritus program was started to provide courses for students a bit older than the traditional 18 year old.
The Mount began to offer a new baccalaureate nursing program in 1975. The Mount began offering business as an independent major in 1983. In 1988, almost 80 years after the College first amended its charter, the Mount amended its charter again to allow the College to confer Master of Science degrees. At the end of the decade, in 1989, the Honors Program was established. Also that year, the continuing education program became adult education.
In 1994, the Mount added a new masters program in Urban Multicultural Education, the first masters program in a department other than nursing. In 1995, the College enhanced its curriculum again by adding programs in allied health studies on both the undergraduate and masters degree levels.