History of Mills College

1852: Young Ladies’ Seminary opens in Benicia, which becomes the state capital of California

1865: Cyrus and Susan Mills, Christian missionaries returning from the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii), purchase the Seminary from Oberlin graduate Mary Atkins

1871: Cyrus and Susan Mills move the Seminary to the Oakland foothills where a new campus had been purchased and Mills Hall is built

1876: Emma Nevada, international opera singer, graduates from Mills in music (she later performs at Mills, accompanied by master cellist Pablo Casals)

1879: Mills Alumnae Association is founded

1885: Mills is chartered as the first women's college west of the Rockies

1889: Mills grants first bachelor’s degrees

1890: Susan Mills, a Mount Holyoke graduate, becomes President of Mills and serves until 1909

1909: Dr. Louella Clay Carson becomes President of Mills until 1914

1914: Professor of Mathematics Hettie Belle Ege becomes dean and acting President until 1916

1916: Aurelia Henry Reinhardt becomes President of Mills, leading the College through two world wars and the Great Depression

1917: Mills is admitted to the Association of American Universities and Colleges

1920: Graduate Division opens

1921: Mills confers first master’s degrees

1926: Education Department establishes the Children’s School, the first laboratory school west of the Mississippi

1934: Trustees approve faculty tenure

1940: Composer Darius Milhaud begins his tenure of more than 30 years as music professor

1941: Mills becomes one of the nation’s first liberal arts colleges to grant a degree in modern dance

1966: Mills launches Upward Bound, a program for aspiring college students, which is now one of the country’s largest programs of its kind

-The San Francisco Tape Music Center moves to Mills and becomes the Mills Tape Music Center, which is later renamed the Center for Contemporary Music

1969: Walter A. Haas Pavilion is dedicated

1971: Merce Cunningham Dance Company begins campus residency

1974: Mills becomes the first women’s college to offer a computer science major

1986: The Aron Art Center, with up-to-date art studios and teaching spaces, is dedicated

1990: The F.W. Olin Library, centerpiece project of the Campaign for Mills (1984-1989), opens

-Trustees reaffirm commitment to educating women following campus-wide strike to remain all-women at undergraduate level

1991: Janet L. Holmgren, inaugurated as 11th President of Mills, leads College into the 21st century

1992: Leadership Institute for Teaching Elementary Science, funded by National Science Foundation, is established to advance science teaching in Oakland public schools

1993: Women’s Leadership Institute and its Center for Visiting Women Scholars is established

-Mills announces two-year tuition freeze to enhance educational access for women

1994: Women’s Leadership Institute hosts Women in Science Summit, which releases national report to advance women’s leadership in scientific disciplines

-Mills endowment passes $100 million mark

-Mills Hall is renovated following near-destruction in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake

1997: Mills receives major three-year James Irvine Foundation grant to create model undergraduate liberal arts curriculum through multicultural transformation

1998: Trefethen Aquatic Center opens

1999: Mills’ first doctoral degree, an EdD in educational leadership, is accredited

-National conference on girls’ education hosted by Women’s Leadership Institute

-Mills convenes summit to address statewide teacher shortage

-Educator Johnnetta B. Cole gives commencement address and receives honorary degree

2000: New $8 million education center opens for pre-doctoral programs

-Board of Trustees announces Sesquicentennial Campaign to raise $100 million by 2002

-Author Isabel Allende gives commencement address and receives honorary degree

2001: New academic programs debut: the Institute for Civic Leadership, the 4+1 BA/MBA, the environmental science major, and the Public Policy Program

2002: Mills celebrates its Sesquicentennial as the oldest women’s college west of the Rockies

2003: Mills College Art Museum presents major African American photography exhibit, Reflections in Black, as part of a three-museum showcase

2004: Mills completes largest fundraising campaign in its history, raising more than $130 million ($30 million over the goal). Funds to support academic programs, student scholarships, endowed professorships, facilities, and technology

-$10 million gift received from Lorry I. Lokey to support new Graduate School of Business

-Mills launches innovative two-year Pre-Nursing Program, leading to a bachelor of science in partnership with Samuel Merritt University

2006: Mills attains highest enrollment in College's history with more than 1,400 students

-Mills begins enrolling students for new master's degree in public policy

-Mills endowment passes $200 million mark

2007: Foremost feminist activist Gloria Steinem visits Mills

-Lorry I. Lokey, Mills Trustee and major donor, is named one of the nation's most generous philanthropists in the Chronicle of Philanthropy

-U.S. News & World Report ranks Mills sixth among western colleges and universities, and sixth in the category of "Great Schools, Great Prices"

-Mills is awarded a Kresge Foundation Challenge Grant of $1 million for the new 26,000-square-foot "green" Natural Sciences Building

-The Betty Irene Moore Natural Sciences Building attains LEED Platinum certification, becoming the first building in Oakland to earn the highest certified rating in environmental design and construction

2008: Chelsea Clinton speaks at Mills

-Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums proclaims February 25 through 29 "Mills College Week" in honor of the Natural Sciences Building's prestigious environmental design rating

-Mills shatters a "glass ceiling" to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new home of its women-focused MBA Program, the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, which is the first for women in the West, and one of only two for women in the nation

-Mills wins first place for recycling food waste in the national RecycleMania competition

-Mills is named one of the Best 368 Colleges and one of the 117 "Best Western Colleges" in the nation by The Princeton Review. The College also stands out with a top-notch green rating

-Forbes ranks Mills 75th in the country, placing it among the top two percent of colleges and universities in the United States

-Mills announces the MFA in book art and creative writing, the first degree of its kind in the nation

-Mills is ranked fourth among the best colleges and universities in the West by U.S. News & World Report, up from its 2007 ranking

2009: An extensive renovation and restoration of the historic concert hall is completed. Mills renames it the Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall and celebrates the reopening with a six-concert festival of contemporary music