Douglass College Fact Sheet

• Douglass College is the largest public women’s college in the country.
• Douglass College is the only women’s college that is part of a major public research university.
• Founded in 1918 by the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs as the New Jersey College for Women – renamed Douglass College in 1955 in honor of the founding Dean Mabel Smith Douglass.
• Named Number One Women’s College by “Money Magazine’s Guide to Best College Buys Now.”
• Approximately 3,000 students attend Douglass College.
• Douglass College offers a unique women’s community in a coeducational environment within Rutgers University.

Douglass College is “Where Women Learn to Lead”

• Participating member of the Public Leadership Education Network (PLEN), a national consortium of women’s colleges working together to prepare women for public leadership.
• Offers a Leadership Certificate program – including the LEADing Edge and the Emerging Leaders programs.
• Provides participating students with an official Leadership Transcript.
• Charter member of the Institute of Women’s Leadership consortium, created to study and promote how and why women lead, and to develop programs that prepare women of all ages to lead effectively.

Douglass College supports women who choose to pursue professions in which women have been underrepresented

• Created the Douglass Project for Women in Math, Science and Engineering in 1986 to increase the numbers of young women studying in scientific and technological fields. The Douglass Project received the National Science Foundation’s 1999 Presidential Award for Excellence.
• Provides a living/learning community for women in the Bunting-Cobb Math, Science and Engineering Residence Hall.
• Offers Pre-Law and Health Professions advising.
• Offers an International Certificate Program.

Douglass College provides innovative and unique programs tailored specifically to the needs of women

• Created the Bunting Program in the 1950’s to advise and assist women of non-traditional age in pursuing their undergraduate college degree.
• Created the first year course entitled Shaping A Life, that sharpens learning and research skills and offers an interdisciplinary yet highly personal study that helps students think critically about their own education and their lives as women.
• Created and continues to develop living/learning communities through the Global Village that develop language skills, inter-cultural appreciation, global awareness and a sense of community among the residents.
• Provides mentoring opportunities for Douglass students through the award-winning AADC Extern Program. (Recipient of The 2005 Wynona M. Lipman Award in Recognition of Mentoring, given by the NJ Department of Community Affairs and NJ Advisory Commission on the Status of Women).