Sarah Lawrence College is a small liberal arts college in Bronxville, New York, about an hour north of Manhattan. Originally a women’s college, the college is now coed. However, female students continue to outnumber male students in the student population. Sarah Lawrence College is known for its arts and humanities programs. Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono, Barbara Walters, Grace Paley, and Vera Wang are among the college’s notable alumni.
Sarah Lawrence’s academic system consists of a donning system and self-directed study. The term “don” comes from Oxford tradition and is used to refer to campus academic advisors. In their first year, students are assigned to dons based on their intended course of study. A student will meet with his or her don bi-weekly in the first year of college and take one course with the instructor. Students meet with their dons at least once a semester after the first year to discuss their course of study and academic progress. If a student develops a strong bond with another faculty member, he or she may request that the dons be switched.
The course structure at Sarah Lawrence College is intentionally loose to allow students to create their own academic plan. There are no required courses; Sarah Lawrence College does not offer introductory courses, but does provide courses for beginners in each subject. Although each student must complete a total of 120 credits in order to graduate, the requirements for credit distribution across the college’s subjects are quite lax.
Students at Sarah Lawrence College do not receive letter grades. A student receives a written evaluation from each of his or her professors at the end of each semester. Such evaluations cover the student’s course work and progress, as well as the student’s final project, or “conference work,” as Sarah Lawrence refers to it. The work that a student does outside of class is referred to as conference work. Students choose a topic to research near the beginning of each semester that is related to the work they are doing in class. A student taking a Victorian Literature course, for example, might research the Bronte family’s medical history. Students meet with their professors on a regular basis to discuss the status of their conference work. A completed conference project could result in a long paper, a piece of art or music, or a class presentation.