The Story of Simon's Rock

Founded in 1966 on the idea that many bright, highly motivated young people of 15 or 16 are ready to undertake serious college work, Bard College at Simon’s Rock was created through the extraordinary vision of Elizabeth Blodgett Hall. Mrs. Hall had the idea to create the nation’s first early college, and committed the resources of the Blodgett Foundation to realizing her vision, building and sustaining Simon’s Rock through its first decades. While the notion of early college has gained considerable momentum in recent years, Simon’s Rock remains unique: the only college in America specifically founded and solely dedicated to offering an excellent residential liberal arts college program to students after the tenth or eleventh grade.

Originally, Simon’s Rock was a women’s school, offering its students a four-year program combining the last two years of high school and the first two years of college and concluding with an Associate of Arts (AA) degree. As Simon’s Rock’s first president, Mrs. Hall planned the campus and hired its first faculty and staff, working with them to develop a curriculum and recruit the College’s first classes. In the fall of 1966, while the campus was still under construction, Simon’s Rock enrolled its first class; in 1970, the first graduates received their degrees and the College became coeducational.

Having established Simon’s Rock’s mission and guided it through the turbulent years of the late 1960s, Mrs. Hall retired from the presidency in 1972. She was succeeded by Dr. Baird W. Whitlock, who led the College through a period of transition and growth. By 1974, the College restructured the AA curriculum to eliminate its high school components. Through support from the National Science Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation, the college also developed its interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts (BA) program, which gained approval from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1974. With the introduction of its first BA majors, Simon’s Rock became what it has remained ever since: a four-year college of the liberal arts and sciences.

Like many of the other colleges founded in the 1960s, by 1979 Simon’s Rock was struggling with pressures of insufficient enrollment and inadequate resources. At that critical moment, Mrs. Hall turned to President Leon Botstein of Bard College. Dr. Botstein, who had himself entered the University of Chicago at 16, understood the significance of Simon’s Rock and early college. In 1979, Simon’s Rock became part of Bard College, one of the country’s outstanding and innovative liberal arts colleges, located 50 miles away in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Retaining its separate identity and mission, the partnership brought new strength to Simon’s Rock.

In the 2001–2002 academic year, Simon’s Rock joined with Bard College in creating the Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) in New York City. BHSEC is a branch campus of Simon’s Rock, and offers two years of enriched high school and two years of early college. It is a free public school and recruits students on a competitive basis from the five boroughs of New York City. At the end of this fouryear program, students earn the AA in Liberal Arts degree and are eligible for transfer to other colleges and universities, just as Simon’s Rock’s AA graduates are.

In 2004, with the retirement from administration after 19 years of transformative leadership by Dean Bernard F. Rodgers, Mary B. Marcy was appointed provost and vice president. Under Dr. Marcy’s leadership, the College is developing new signature programs to strengthen the academic core and creating outreach initiatives aimed to bring greater recognition to the innovations of early college and of Simon’s Rock.