History:

A Sarah Lawrence education teaches you that you have the right and duty to be what some people would call a troublemaker that is, an independent, intelligent, curious person who wants to find his or her own solutions to things. This is a place that encourages people to take risks, to go against the grain intellectually, emotionally, artistically and politically. How did we get that way?

Seventy-five years ago, it was not so obvious that we'd move in such a direction. Indeed, a central goal at the founding was to educate young ladies of good families to take their proper place in polite society. One need only glance at the portraits of William and Sarah Lawrence in Westlands to see how different that world was. It was a world of refinement, order and decorum, a world with a clear sense of right and wrong. A comment by Sarah herself is illustrative. "I never ask myself if I want to do anything. I ask myself if it is my duty, and that answers the question."