Hunter College History & Milestones

May 8, 1847	The Free Academy is established for males (it is renamed College of the City of New York in 1866 and City College of New York in 1948).
1866	The New York City Department of Public Instruction passes resolution establishing a Normal and High School for Females.
November 17, 1869	The Board of Education votes to establish a Daily Normal and High School for Females.
December 1, 1869	Lease is signed for first building on upper floor-and-a-half of business building at southeast corner of Broadway and Fourth Street.  Annual rent is $5,000.
December 1, 1869	The Board of Education changes the name of the school to the Female Normal and High School.
December 1, 1869	Thomas Hunter is appointed first President of the Female Normal and High School.
February 14, 1870	First classes are held on rented premises, above a carriage shop, at 691 Broadway.  Hunter's official founding date.
March 24, 1870	Dedication of the Female Normal and High School.
April 26, 1870	State Legislature changes name of the Female Normal and High School to Normal College of the City of New York.
May 1870	New York City grants the Normal College a plot of land on Fourth Avenue (later renamed Park Avenue), between 68th and 69th Streets, for the construction of a permanent building.
July 6, 1870	Model Primary School becomes Normal College Training School.
July 12, 1870	First Commencement is held at Academy of Music, 14th Street and Irving Place (97 graduates receive certificates)
March 19, 1872	Cornerstone of Park Avenue Building of the Normal College is laid.
June 29, 1872	Inaugural meeting of the Associate Alumnae.
1872	Minimum age of admission to the Normal College is raised to fourteen years.
October 29, 1873	Normal College at Park Avenue, 68th to 69th Streets, opens and is formally dedicated.
1879	The three-year Normal College course is expanded to four years.
1887	The first tuition-free public kindergarten in the U.S. is established at the Normal College.
June 19, 1888	New York State legislature passes the Cantor Bill incorporating the Normal College and giving it the right to grant degrees.  Course of study at Normal College is divided into "Normal" (Teaching) and "Classical" (Academic) tracks.  Minimum age for admission is raised to 15.
June 20, 1888	First meeting of the Normal College Board of Trustees.
December 19, 1888	"Ö the salaries of Öteachers in the Training Department having been increased to $500 each per annumÖ"
1889	The Associate Alumnae is incorporated.
April 1889	The Alpha Beta Gamma and the Philomathean chapters jointly produce the Echo, the first undergraduate publication, which appears until 1966.
June 23, 1892	First B.A. degree (non-Regents accredited) is conferred.
1894	The Normal College accepts the Associate Alumnae Library as a gift.
1894	Members of the Associate Alumnae open the Normal College Alumnae Settlement House (later renamed the Lenox Hill Settlement House and, more recently, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House).
1896	The first edition of the Alumnae News is published.
1902	The Normal College receives provisional Regents accreditation and state recognition of its degrees.
1902	The annual yearbook edition of the Echo becomes the Wistarion.
June 1902	This graduating class is the first to wear academic caps and gowns.
1903	High school and college courses are separated.
September 1, 1906	President Thomas Hunter retires.
1906 ‚ 1908	Joseph A. Gillet serves as Acting President.
May 4, 1908	George Samler Davis becomes second President.
December 23, 1908	Full State recognition of Normal College B.A. makes degree equal to degrees awarded at other women's colleges.
June 1909	Faculty marches in full academic regalia at commencement, for the first time.
1911 ‚ 1912	Student Council is established.
October 8, 1913	Vol. 1, No. 1 of student newspaper, Bulletin, is published.  It is later absorbed by the Arrow, which later becomes the Hunter Envoy.
1913	A new six-story structure (later renamed Thomas Hunter Hall) is built on Lexington Avenue.
April 4, 1914	State Legislature authorizes change of college name to Hunter College of The City of New York.
May 4, 1915	A Hunter College Board of Trustees is established.
July 2, 1915	Mayor Mitchell appoints five men and four women to Board of Trustees.
July 1916	First summer session.
February 1917	First Evening and Extension Sessions.
1919	The Alumnae open a Bureau of Occupations, which later becomes the Career Counseling and Placement Bureau.
February 11, 1920	A Phi Beta Kappa chapter is established.
February 1920	Hunter celebrates its 50th Anniversary.  The Bronx branch is established.
September 8, 1921	Graduate programs are introduced at Hunter College.
February 1925	The Brooklyn branch is established.
February 1926	The Queens branch is established.
May 26, 1926	Mayor Walker calls first meeting of the Board of Higher Education.
March 26, 1929	James M. Kieran is inaugurated as third President.
1929 ‚ 1933	The Bronx Campus (later to become Lehman College) is constructed.
April 22, 1930	Board of Higher Education adopts Hunter College proposal for the creation of Brooklyn College.
June 1931	The Brooklyn branch is absorbed by Brooklyn College.
September 19, 1931	Gillet Hall, the first building of the Bronx campus, is opened.
September 1, 1933	Eugene Colligan takes office as fourth President.
February 14, 1936	The main building at Park Avenue and 68th Street is destroyed by fire.
April 6, 1937	The Board of Higher Education authorizes the creation of Queens College.
September 1, 1940	George N. Shuster becomes fifth President.
October 8, 1940	New building is dedicated at Park Avenue and 68th Street.
1942	Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicates performing arts centers at Hunter.
November 22, 1943	Roosevelt House is dedicated as the first collegiate interfaith center in the nation.
February 1943 to December 1945	Bronx Campus is turned over to the Navy as a training center for 80,000 WAVES.  GI Bill of Rights (Public Law 346 Servicemen Readjustment Act of 1944) brings men to the main campus.
March 4, 1946	The Board of Higher Education authorizes use of Hunter College in the Bronx by the Organization of the United Nations for the first regular session of the U.N. Council and General Assembly
March 30, 1948	The Teacher Education Program is established.
1949	The Alumnae Association initiates a Scholarship and Welfare Fund.
November 18, 1950	The first production of the Hunter College Theatre Workshop: "Antigone" by Anouilh.
September 14, 1951	First coeducational registration is held at Hunter in the Bronx.
June 1955	The Bronx campus graduates its first coeducational class.
February 1, 1956	The Louis M. Rabinowitz School of Social Work (later to become the Hunter College School of Social Work) is established.
October 31, 1960	John J. Meng is inaugurated as sixth President.
September 1, 1961	The City University of New York is established (City, Hunter, Brooklyn, Queens, and several community colleges).
1961	The School of General Studies opens at the Bronx campus.
September 14, 1964	First coeducational registration is held at Park Avenue campus.
February 15, 1967	Mary L. Gambrell is invested as seventh President.
July 17, 1967	The Bellevue-Mills School of Nursing is transferred to Hunter College.
February 14, 1968	Robert D. Cross is inaugurated as eighth President.
July 1, 1968	The Institute of Health Sciences is established.
July 1, 1968	Lehman College, formerly Hunter College in the Bronx, gains independent status.
September 30, 1968	The Board of Higher Education authorizes establishment of the Faculty Senate of The City University of New York.
1968-1969	The Evening Session produces the Night Watch.
March 5, 1969	The School of Social Work opens on East 79th Street.
September 1969	The Institute of Health Sciences commences operations in conjunction with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
January 1970	Jacqueline Grennan Wexler becomes the ninth President.
February 14, 1970	Hunter College celebrates its centennial.
1976	Tuition is imposed at The City University of New York.
1977	Nobel Prize winner in medicine: Rosalyn Yalow, Hunter alumna (1941).
1979	Joseph Shenker becomes Acting President.
October 8, 1980	Donna Shalala becomes the tenth President.
September 1982	The Centro de Estudios PuertorriqueÒos becomes part of the College.
1983	President Shalala inaugurates the opening of the East and West Buildings.
1988	Nobel Prize winner in medicine: Gertrude Elion, Hunter alumna (1937).  Hunter becomes the only U.S. college with two female Nobel laureates.
September 1988	Paul LeClerc becomes the eleventh President.
1991	The Hunter College Foundation is established.
November 8, 1993	The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse opens.
December 1, 1993	Blanche D. Blank becomes Acting President.
February 14, 1995	Hunter College celebrates its 125th Anniversary.
July 17, 1995	David A. Caputo becomes twelfth President.
February 1998	Hunter successfully completes its first capital fund-raising campaign, raising $29.63 million, and exceeding its goal by more than $2 million.
June 2-3, 1999	Hunter College celebrates its 179th Commencement in Central Park, the first known college commencement to take place there.
July 15, 2000	Evangelos J. Gizis begins as Interim President.
June 11, 2001	Jennifer J. Raab becomes Hunter's 13th president.

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