Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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Hobart and William Smith Colleges are Geneva, New York, liberal arts colleges in a coordinate system. Hobart College was founded in 1822 as Geneva College and renamed in honor of its founder, Episcopal bishop John Henry Hobart, in 1852. William Smith College was founded in 1908 by Geneva nurseryman and philanthropist William Smith as a women's college sharing certain facilities and faculty with Hobart College but self-identifying not as a single college but as two coordinate colleges.
Hobart College was originally founded in 1789 as Geneva Medical College. Geneva at the time was a bustling upstate New York City, with access to the Erie Canal via Seneca Lake. The college branched out to include studies in literature, letters, and the humanities. In 1822, Reverend John Henry Hobart, the Episcopal Bishop of Western New York helped to expand the college and the college was renamed Hobart Free College (then Hobart College).
Toward the end of ninteenth century, Hobart College was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was through the presidency of Langdon Stewardson that the college obtained a new donor, nurseryman William Smith. Smith was not interested in directly giving money to Hobart, however. When Stewardson proposed the idea of a coordinate women's college, William Smith College was born in 1908.
Hobart's arch rival in athletics (and academics to an extent) is Union College in Schenectady, New York.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges compete in NCAA Division III athletics, with the exception of men's lacrosse, which competes in the NCAA Division I.
Notable Alumni
- Elizabeth Blackwell, first woman awarded the degree of M.D. in the United States, graduated from the medical school of Geneva College in 1849.
- Warren Littlefield, former head of entertainment at NBC
- Abigail Johnson, heir apparent to Fidelity Investments
- Christopher McDonald, actor (from the Adam Sandler film, Happy Gilmore)
- Alan Kalter, actor (notable for being the announcer from The Late Show with David Letterman
- Brock Yates, screenwriter of the film Cannonball Run and editor in chief of Car and Driver magazine
Notable Faculty
- Grant Holly, professor of English and father of actress Lauren Holly
External link
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges website (http://www.hws.edu/)