Vassar College is in Poughkeepsie, NY, a small city (area population: around 100,000) on the banks of the Hudson River, halfway between Albany, the state capital, and New York City. The college is about three miles from the city center on a 1,000-acre campus surrounded by residential neighborhoods.
The Vassar Campus The campus itself is a little paradise — not so little, actually. The main campus, where most of the academic and residential buildings are, is about 500 acres — sweeping lawns, woodland paths, over 200 species of trees (the campus is actually an arboretum), a meandering stream, the Shakespeare Garden. It's breathtaking in every season, but fall and spring are particularly magnificent. The hill above Sunset Lake is called “daffodil hill” because it's literally covered with naturalized daffodils for about three weeks in the spring. By all means, take the online tour, but come for a visit if you can possibly manage it. Being here is worth a thousand pictures.
Across the road from the main campus is the Vassar Farm, which at one time actually provided food for the college dining hall. Today, about half of the farm (400 acres) is an ecological preserve with a field station where the various science departments carry out research. The other half is home to the Poughkeepsie Farm Project (a member-supported organic farm), the Vassar rugby team, and miles and miles of cross country and mountain biking trails.
New York City Vassar's proximity to New York City is hugely beneficial for both educational and social reasons. The Poughkeepsie Train Station (with service from Metro-North and Amtrack) is a five-minute cab ride from campus, with trains running to Grand Central on the half-hour. Many students commute to the city once a week to do field work for academic credit in galleries, museums, social service agencies, publishing houses, financial services companies, law firms, and the like. And culturally, of course, there's just no place like NYC — Broadway, Lincoln Center, the Met, Madison Square Garden, Greenwich Village, etc. Plus, the train goes both ways. Performers, playwrights, politicians, and poets who live and work in the city come to lecture at Vassar — people like Tony Kushner, Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris, and Wendy Wasserstein.
The Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley is a national treasure — unsurpassed natural beauty, quaint villages, world-class rock climbing and hiking, and major art destinations. Designated a National Heritage Area by Congress in 1966, the valley has more major historic sites per square mile than any other area in the U.S. — to mention just a few, the home of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph (and one of the original Vassar trustees); Franklin D. Roosevelt's boyhood home; Olana, the home of Frederic Church, one of the principal painters of the Hudson River School. It's also, incidentally, the birthplace of the environmental movement and the home port of Pete Seeger's Clearwater sloop.
Poughkeepsie Like other river towns along the Hudson, Poughkeepsie went into decline decades ago when downtown shoppers were lured away by the novelty of shopping malls, but the city is now undergoing a renaissance, with artists and entrepreneurs reclaiming its historic Victorian homes and shops.
For Vassar students, Poughkeepsie is an invaluable social science laboratory, with multiple opportunities for field work, volunteer work, and research in sociology and urban studies. Vassar is one of the founding members (along with other area colleges) of the Poughkeepsie Institute, a multidisciplinary course that, each year, focuses on a particular urban issue and then presents its findings to civic leaders. Last year's topic, for example, was the impact of the arts on urban revitalization.
