Manhattan College

Manhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in New York City. Despite the college's name, it is no longer located in Manhattan but in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, roughly 10 miles north of Midtown. Manhattan College offers undergraduate programs in the arts, business, education, engineering, and science. Graduate programs are offered for education and engineering.

It once housed a public middle school, Jonas Bronck Academy, on the bottom floor of Hayden Hall, the primary residence of the Biochemistry, Chemistry and Physics departments, named after the noted philanthropist Charles Hayden. The middle school closed after the 2008-2009 school year.

History
Manhattan College was founded as the Academy of the Holy Infancy in 1853 by five French Lasallian Brothers in a small building on Canal Street. When the need to expand forced them from Lower Manhattan, the College moved to 131st Street and Broadway, in the Manhattanville section of Harlem. Passengers on the uptown 1 line of the New York City Subway will find that there is a short section of above-ground track located near the college's original location. The school's name was changed to Manhattan College in 1863, and moved to its present location in the Riverdale section of The Bronx in 1922 as it outgrew its facilities in Manhattanville. This is often the cause of some confusion as the college is located outside of Manhattan but still within the city limits of New York City.

Originally exclusive to men, Manhattan College established a cooperative program with the College of Mount Saint Vincent after the pair became coeducational in 1973 and 1974, respectively. This partnership lasted until 2008. Since then, Manhattan College and the College of Mount Saint Vincent have been completely separate.

Manhattan Prep
For 118 years, there existed on the Manhattan College campus a boys' secondary school, Manhattan College High School, familiarly known to students, parents, and rivals as Manhattan Prep. Founded in 1854, the school educated its young men in a Catholic college preparatory curriculum geared toward eventual university matriculation. It was, indeed, a "prep" school in the classic sense: coats and ties were mandatory for class attendance; strict standards of behavior were enforced; and daily newspaper reading was required. The curriculum included 3 years of Latin (with an optional 4th year); foreign language study, including Greek, French, and Spanish; 4 years of laboratory science, and 4 years each of mathematics, English rhetoric and literary forms, and theology.

Throughout its existence, Manhattan Prep was very much the "kid brother" of its host institution. Students shared the college cafeteria, auditorium, and athletic facilities, and its sports teams bore the nickname, "the Jaspers" in homage to the Manhattan College Jaspers. The school newspaper, published monthly, was called The Prepster.

Manhattan Prep closed its doors in 1972 due to rising costs and a decline in Lasallian Brothers' vocations.

Academics
Manhattan College offers degrees in five undergraduate schools: Arts, Business, Education, Engineering and Science. The School for Arts is the largest school overall at the college, but the School of Engineering is the college's most well-known program. Communication is the largest major in the School for Arts.

Students are required to take college-wide general education requirements (such as math, college writing, religion and foreign language) as well as core requirements in their respective school, which varies by school. For example, the School of Arts maintains a core curriculum called The Roots of Modern Learning which includes courses such as "Classical Origins of Western Culture."

Classes operate on a semester schedule. The first semester begins in late-August and runs to December. The second semester begins in mid- to late-January and runs to May. Some courses may run in summer and January, but most students do not take classes during these times.

The College also offers graduate programs in Education and Engineering. The graduate School of Engineering allows students studying engineering as an undergraduate the opportunity to continue on to get their Master's degree without having to switch colleges, as is the case at colleges with a 3 + 2 Engineering program. Formerly, the Manhattan College MBA program held classes primarily on Saturday's. Designed for working adults, Manhattan College closed its MBA program due to the level of expense required to maintain AACSB accreditation. Starting in fall of 2011, Manhattan College’s school of business will introduce a new graduate M.B.A. program.

The Communication program and several other programs were entirely housed at the College of Mount Saint Vincent until 2008. At that time, a new, expanded Communication Department began offering courses on the Manhattan College campus. In the fall of 2008 this program was fully operational, with new, state-of-the-art broadcasting studios and computer labs, adding five new faculty members to create the present program housed in Leo Hall.

Manhattan College contains chapters of various honor societies as Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi. A newly established chapter of Lambda Pi Eta communication honorary has also been added. Manhattan participates in the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges and in the New York Cluster of seven colleges and universities supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts for undergraduate science education.

Athletics
Manhattan College fields 19 Division-I athletic teams for men and women, including basketball, soccer, rugby, baseball and softball, tennis, lacrosse and volleyball. The school's men's sports teams are called the Jaspers; women are known as Lady Jaspers. Historically track and field has been the school's strongest sport. Manhattan is a Member of the MAAC.

The College annually played the New York Giants in the late 1880s and into the 1890s at the Polo Grounds and Manhattan is credited by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the practice of the "seventh inning stretch" spreading from there into major league baseball. It is written in the Baseball Hall of Fame that "During one particularly warm and humid day when Manhattan College was playing a semi-pro baseball team called the Metropolitans, Brother Jasper noticed the Manhattan students were becoming restless and edgy as Manhattan came to bat in the seventh inning of a close game. To relieve the tension, Brother Jasper called time-out and told the students to stand up and stretch for a few minutes until the game resumed." On the college's 150th anniversary in 2003 at a New York Yankees game, Brother Jasper was credited with the Seventh-inning stretch.

Luis Castro, a Manhattan College alumnus, was the first ever Major League Baseball player of Hispanic origin.

Manhattan College had a football program from 1924 until 1942. The college team posted an all-time record of 194 wins, 198 losses, and 22 ties. The final coach for the school's football team was Herbert M. Kopf. After the 1942 season, the school suspended intercollegiate football competition for World War II and then did not reactivate the program after completion of the war. The team was invited to the first ever Miami Palm Festival Game, predecessor to the Orange Bowl, played on January 2, 1933, University of Miami defeated Manhattan College 7–0.

The team was revived in the 1965 in the form of a club team, and existed until 1987.

The school participated in the first intercollegiate lacrosse game in the United States, playing New York University.

Infrastructure
Manhattan College occupies a relatively compact but architecturally arresting and various campus. The physical plant is divided into a North and a South campus. The North campus overlooks Van Cortlandt park, and has as its focal point "the Quad", which sits at the center of the campus four main buildings. Memorial Hall is the main entry onto campus and houses the office of the president as well as most of the other administrative offices on campus. Miguel Hall and De La Salle Hall are the main academic halls that border each side of the Quad. The fourth side of the Quad is bordered by the chapel building, which houses Smith Auditorium (used for receptions and various speakers and performances) on the first floor and the Chapel of De La Salle and His Brothers on the second floor, which features a painting of De La Salle and Brothers behind the altar, a large performing area where musical events and concerts take place on the altar, a grand piano and a pipe organ in the balcony.

Thomas Hall is the College's student life building. It houses the offices of the Dean of Students, the student government, the radio station, the newspaper, the TV station, the musical ensembles, and others. The college's three dining halls, Locke's Loft, Plato's Cave and Dante's Den, are also located in Thomas Hall.

The O'Malley Library is a relatively new, six-story structure that was joined with the previous library, the Cardinal Hayes Pavilion. Built on a hill, the new library was built directly next to and above the old one, essentially combining the two and creating more floors. The Office of Admissions is on the sixth floor of O'Malley.

Hayden Hall is on the east side of campus and houses the sciences as well as the department of fine arts.

On the South campus, across 240th street, is Leo Hall and the Research and Learning Center (RLC). The two are home to all of the engineering departments: electrical, computer, civil, chemical, mechanical, and environmental, along with the math and computer science departments and all communication classrooms, computer labs and broadcasting studios. Laboratories and classes for these disciplines take place in both buildings. Both biology and chemistry laboratories are also located in Leo. This building once contained a working nuclear reactor, which has since been decommissioned and stripped of its nuclear fuel and power generating capabilities in 1999. The Leo cafeteria, located in the basement, provides an alternative to trekking up to the main campus for breakfast and lunch.

Leo Hall is the home of the Communications Department's new television and audio studios and computer labs.

There are currently four on-campus residence halls at Manhattan. Jasper Hall and Chrysostom Hall are both traditional-style dorms, while Horan Hall (at 11 stories) is a suite-style building. In 1988, three floors were added to the wing of Jasper Hall raising it to six stories. Jasper 5th floor has the last original plaster-of-paris statue of the Virgin Mary and child. The famous naturalist and poet Harry V. Radford called Jasper 517 home. The newest hall, East Hill, was built in the style of Horan Hall. It opened in the fall of 2008. Overlook Manor, commonly known as "OV" is an off campus residence hall that offers apartment style living.

Draddy Gymnasium is the home of the basketball and volleyball teams, and also features the largest indoor track in New York City. Commencement exercises are held in Draddy. Gaelic Park, on 240th street, has recently been renovated with an artificial turf and is where soccer, lacrosse, and softball teams play. The college also heavily utilizes adjacent Van Cortlandt Park for baseball, outdoor track and field, golf, and cross country as well as intramural activities. Alumni Hall is the home of the college's workout facilities.

The Broadway Garage is the newly completed five floor parking garage located on Broadway. The garage offers parking to students, faculty and sporting events. The garage is also connected to Hayden hall via a pedestrian bridge that connects to one of Hayden's top floors, allowing pedestrians to bypass crossing Manhattan College Parkway. It is the newest addition to the college infrastructure.

Transportation
The College is located between two major New York City roads, the Henry Hudson Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway. The Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street subway station provides access to Manhattan and the rest of the city via the 1 train. Travel time to midtown on the subway is roughly 30–40 minutes.

Notable alumni
Manhattan has approximately 50,000 living alumni worldwide. Manhattan alumni are distinguishing themselves in the fields of academics, arts, engineering, literature, business, entertainment, government and law.


 * In the field of academia, Manhattan graduates include: Joseph A. Alutto, executive vice president and provost of The Ohio State University; Charles H. Lochmuller, award-winning professor of chemistry at Duke University; L. Jay Oliva, 14th President of New York University; Henry Petroski, award-winning professor of civil engineering at Duke University; John Neuhauser, president of Saint Michael's College.


 * In the fields of arts and literature, Manhattan graduates include: William Edmund Barrett, author of The Left Hand of God and Lilies of the Field; James Patterson, world's best-selling and Edgar Award-winning novelist; Al Sarrantonio, Bram Stoker Award-winning author; and George A. Sheehan, best-selling author of Running & Being: The Total Experience


 * In the field of business, Manhattan graduates include Sam Belnavis, NASCAR owner; Vincent de Paul Draddy, introduced Izod and Lacoste brands; John M. Fahey, president and CEO of the National Geographic Society; Frank M. Folsom, former president of RCA Victor; John Horan '40, former chairman & CEO of Merck & Co.; Eugene R. McGrath, former chairman and CEO of Con Edison; Thomas J. Moran, president and CEO of Mutual of America Life Insurance Company; Thomas D. O'Mally '63, successful commodities trader and former chairman & CEO of Premcor who created the modern independent refining industry and Joseph M. Tucci, chairman, president and CEO of the EMC Corporation


 * In the field of entertainment, Manhattan graduates include: Frank Campanella, TV and motion picture actor on Captain Video; Joseph Campanella, TV, stage, and motion picture actor on Mannix; Alexandra Chando, TV actress known for role as Maddie on As The World Turns; Dennis Day, TV and radio personality on The Jack Benny Program; Barnard Hughes, Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor on Hugh Leonard's Da; Mike Mazurki, professional wrestler and chartacter actor who appeared in over 100 movies; Hugo Montenegro, TV and movie soundtrack composer known for theme song for I Dream of Jeannie and The Outcasts; and Glenn Hughes, founding member of The Village People


 * In the fields of law and government, Manhattan graduates include: Anthony V. Cardona, presiding justice of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division;  John S. Martin, former U.S. Attorney and U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York; Hugh J. Grant, 91st Mayor of New York City; Rudy Giuliani, 107th Mayor of New York City; Raymond W. Kelly, New York City Police Commissioner; Chang Myon, 2nd and 7th Prime Minister of South Korea; and U.S Representatives from New York: John J. Boylan, John J. Delaney, John J. Fitzgerald, Bill Owens, Angelo D. Roncallo, Thomas Francis Smith, Andrew Lawrence Somers, and James J. Walsh


 * Other notable Manhattan graduates include: James W. Cooley, mathematician, co-author of the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) algorithm used in digital processing; Austin Dowling, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis; Patrick Joseph Hayes, Cardinal Archbishop of New York; George Mundelein, Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago; and Olympic track gold medalists Lindy Remigino and Louis Jones.