Elizabeth Seton College
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Elizabeth Seton College

Elizabeth Seton College (ESC) was a private, Catholic two-year college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Run by the Sisters of Charity of New York, the college opened in 1961 and closed in 1989, merging with the more financially secure Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.

Elizabeth Seton College was opened in 1961 by the Sisters of Charity of New York in the Alder Manor, former home of copper magnate William Boyce Thompson. The mansion was purchased by Archdiocese of New York in 1951, and served as a girls' high school for ten years before being upgraded to a junior college. The first class graduated on 9 May 1963. By 1966, the school had grown to the point when it employed 55 persons, including 29 Sisters of Charity, two diocesan priests, and 24 lay employees.

In 1973, a group of Sotheby Parke Bernet appraisers were invited to the Seton to examine some paintings in the Alder Manor. Upon entering the mansion they noticed what they recognized as a Medici bowl, one of the earliest works of European porcelain, and made in Florence during the reign of Francesco de Medici. It was soon sold by the college at auction, and fetched a price of $180,000 ($994,500 in 2015 dollars), at the time, the largest price ever paid for European porcelain or any pre-19th century work of art, excluding paintings.

Seton was still a women's college as of 1971, but by at least as early as 1973 it was coeducational, and had opened an experimental female dormitory where males were allowed to come in to intermingle.[citation needed]

Mary Ellen Brosnan, became President of Seton College in 1975. Her tenure was marked by advances in the college's academic offerings, including new career programs in radio and television and medical laboratory training. Also introduced during her presidency was the LINK, or Leap Into Knowledge program, which gave high school students the opportunity to receive college credits. She also began a policy of awarding credit based on life learning, and during her tenure, Seton was one of the first three colleges to offer a weekend classes program.

In 1986, Elizabeth Seton College celebrated its 25th anniversary. Part of the ceremonies included a two-part dinner lecture and tour in the Alder Manor, hosted by Brosnan.

In early December 1988, it was announced that Elizabeth Seton College would merge with Iona College in time for the next fall semester. The merger was, in the words of Iona President John G. Driscoll, "not a rescue operation, but a marriage." According to a 1989 article by The New York Times, trustees of both colleges had commissioned separate studies by task forces over the two months. The results and recommendations were brought before the New York Board of Regents on 17 February 1989.

According to Seton President Mary Ellen Brosnan, the path to the merger had begun "several years ago", amidst declining enrollment and growing competition from "the public sector". She said in 1988:

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