Elms College

The College of Our Lady of the Elms, often called Elms College, is a Catholic liberal arts college located in Chicopee, Massachusetts, near Springfield. Elms was founded as a girls' preparatory academy in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Academy of Our Lady of the Elms, in 1897. In 1899, Rev. John McCoy and Bishop Thomas Beaven of the Springfield diocese purchased property in Chicopee and it became St. Joseph's Normal College. In 1927, the Sisters of Saint Joseph petitioned the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to charter the school as a women's liberal arts college, the charter was approved in... 1928, and the name was changed to the College of Our Lady of the Elms with Rev. Thomas Mary O'Leary as the first president. Under increasing financial and enrollment pressures, the Elms College board of trustees voted 23-5 to begin admitting men, starting with the 1998-1999 school year, on October 7, 1997. It was placed on a watchlist by the US Department of Education, due to fiscal instability. The campus is about two miles north of Metro Center Springfield, Massachusetts. It is focused on the Keating Quadrangle, which lies at its center, and has 14 buildings.
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