About Assumption College

Assumption College is a private, Catholic institution of higher learning founded in 1904 by and conducted under the auspices of the Augustinians of the Assumption.

The College is located in Worcester, Massachusetts, a city of 165,000 people. A total enrollment of approximately 2,600 undergraduate, continuing education, and graduate students are served by over 200 faculty in 17 departments and by a staff of 230.

Situated on 150 acres, the campus comprises 35 buildings for teaching, research, administration, and housing. The most recent building added on campus, the Living/Learning Center, opened in the fall of 1998. The Center is a 160-bed residence hall that integrates academic experience with a community living experience by permitting students and faculty to live in a common residence hall and to work together on projects. Each four-person apartment has a project theme which the students investigate and present to the community through six programs during the academic year. The building also includes classroom and seminar space.

Computer facilities are up-to-date and networked. The computer center contains seven Macintosh and Wintel labs for student use, including a multimedia lab constructed in 1996; additional computer clusters are located elsewhere on campus. In all, 275 computers are available on campus for student use. All classrooms, labs, and residences are connected to the campus network and the Internet.

College Education Program.

Assumption College is noted for its excellence in preparing undergraduates with certification in both primary and secondary teaching, in continuing education programs for the profession and in creating cooperative programs linking science education at the College to public school instruction in the area. In the undergraduate program a nationally recognized collaboration between College science and education faculty has developed an educational biology lab that links grammar school children, their instructors and college students in a learning environment to improve the science education of future teachers. In the College's Center for Professional and Continuing Education, well established school-College partnerships provide prospective and in-service teachers with multiple opportunities for professional development, including seminars, workshops, courses, and summer institutes.

Community Studies Program.

One example of the multidisciplinary environment on Assumption's Campus is the program in community studies. Led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty in sociology, geography and history and using Worcester and its environs as a research and teaching resource, Assumption's Community Studies Program has developed a network of working relationships with area scholars, their students and the greater community. This teaching program, growing from ongoing research, has facilitated an appreciation for the relationship between transportation and both the physical and built environments not only among faculty in the program and their students but within that larger network.

Colleges of Worcester Consortium

In 1967, Assumption College joined with other institutions of higher learning in the Worcester area to organize the Colleges of Worcester Consortium. The consortium includes eleven colleges in the Worcester area and the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Art Museum and the Worcester Historical Museum. Assumption students may participate in the special educational, cultural, and social endeavors provided by the COWC. Specialized courses are available for credit away from the home institution under a system of cross-registration. Several Consortium institutions offer transportation/environmental courses. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, for example, offers courses in Transportation Engineering and Urban Design, Transportation and Planning, and Urban and Environmental Planning. Clark University, another consortium college, offers courses in Environmental Policy and Management in its Environmental School, and students can take courses in a variety of courses that connect to transportation and the environment such as Technology and Social Change, Environmental Toxicology, and Technology and Environmental Assessment in the Clark Environmental Science and Policy program.