November 1985

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation renewed the $250,000 “New Liberal Arts” grant to the college, thus enabling, “the college to enhance the quantitative skills and technological understanding of the students,” said Patricia Johnson, professor of biology and associate dean of the college. Professor of economics Stephen Rousseas expressed the concerns of some faculty members that the technology-oriented programs initiated by the grant would affect the quality of the liberal arts education offered by the college. “We are allowing a private institution to come in and pay for imposing its definition of a liberal arts education on us,” he said. “That doesn’t speak well for Vassar.” The Miscellany News