administrative history

Opened on April 22, 1835, Wheaton Female Seminary was founded as a living monument the Judge Laban Wheaton's recently deceased and much loved daughter Eliza Strong Wheaton.

From its founding, Wheaton Seminary was a pioneering institution, offering young women the means to pursue serious study at a time when women's educational options were few. In planning their school, the Wheaton family turned to one of the recognized leaders of the day in female education: Mary Lyon. Miss Lyon created the seminary's first curriculum with the goal that it be equal in the "English branches"--science, philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, history, composition, logic and religious studies--to the curricula of men's schools.

Lucy Larcom, who taught writing, literature and history from 1854 to 1862, may be the best known of Wheaton's 19th-century faculty.

Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton, daughter in law of Judge Laban Wheaton and wife of Laban Morrey Wheaton, played an ongoing part in the life of the seminary. In the mid-1890s she was among the first to recognize that the age of the seminary was ending. Four-year colleges were becoming the rule rather than the exception, for women as well as men. (Indeed, seminary enrollment in 1897 was a mere 25 students.) Convinced that Wheaton should seek collegiate status, Mrs. Wheaton called upon trustees to appoint the Reverend Samuel Valentine Cole as the seminary's first president. Within six months of assuming the position, Rev. Cole announced his intention to seek a college charter "at some future time if circumstances shall seem to warrant." In November 1911, trustees announced their decision to apply for a college charter, which was granted by the Massachusetts Legislature in February 1912.

In January of 1987 Wheaton trustees recommended, in principle, that the 152-year-old women's college open its doors to young men. After several months of discussion among alumnae, parents and friends, the board approved the move in May of that year. Wheaton's first coeducational class--412 young men and women--arrived on campus in September 1988.

In recent years, Wheaton has enjoyed an outstanding record of student achievement. The college produced 18 national scholarship winners in 2005, including its second Rhodes Scholar in five years. Since 2000, more than 40 Wheaton students have won national scholarship awards, including the Truman, Fulbright, Madison, Watson, British Marshall, Goldwater and Rotary International scholarships. Wheaton is one of only a handful of liberal arts colleges in the country to have produced two Rhodes in recent years. The college also was named a Truman Foundation Honor School for its focus on Truman Scholar candidates and students interested in pursuing careers in public service.

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