In 1935, the first student of color, Margaret Hart, graduated from the four-year program at the State Teachers College of North Adams (now MCLA). Hart was born in 1911 in Williamstown and was the oldest of her siblings. After entering the State…

Throughout the ’60s and ’70s at MCLA, fewer protests took place than one might expect from a liberal arts school. For those that did occur, the academic quad served as the hot spot for all of them. Between 1965 and 1975, students mobilized only…

MCLA's Student Government Association (SGA) started more than one hundred years ago. SGA controls the budgets of clubs and allows students to have a voice in decisions the school makes. The MCLA archives retain records of SGA budgets and…

Enrollment at North Adams State College (NASC), now Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), boomed after construction of three new buildings: Bowman Hall, Eldridge Hall and Freel Library. Costing over $3 million dollars when construction…

Venable Hall honors Wallace Venable, retired head of the science department and former member of the North Adams School Committee and planning board. Born in 1893, Mr. Venable became a key player in the fight against marriage bars in education…

In July 1975, North Adams State College (NASC), now MCLA, approved a nearly $15,000 (equivalent to nearly $70,000 today) grant for the establishment of the Center for Resourceful Living (CRL), a program with a ‘back-to-the-land’ ideology and…

In March of 1990, a group of MCLA professors concerned about the campus community’s behavior of prejudice and racism created the Day of Conversations, a series of workshops centered on the topics of diversity and inclusion. They designed the…