Marymount Manhattan College

History

Marymount Manhattan College was founded in 1936 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary as a two-year women's college and a New York City extension of Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. In 1948, the college moved to its present location on East 71st Street and became a four-year bachelor's degree-granting college; the first class graduated from MMC in 1950. In 1961, MMC was granted an absolute charter as an independent four-year college by the Regents of the University of the State of New York.

In 1976, Finch College, a women's college best known as a "finishing school" for affluent young women, closed and passed its records over to the school. The school was most famous for educating Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of former US President Richard Nixon.

In 1990, Regina Peruggi became Marymount's first lay president. In 2003, the college's mezzanine was renamed in her honor. In 2001, the college opened the 55th Street Residence Hall, one of the tallest dorms in the United States, with 32 floors of student housing in a 46-story building.

The Cardinal Newman Society protested the college's 2005 decision to invite then-Senator Hillary Clinton to deliver a commencement address and receive an honorary doctoral degree, due to Clinton's longtime public support for abortion rights. The archdiocese thereafter moved to have the college removed from the Official Catholic Directory, rendering the school officially non-Catholic. In response, the school, which continued to be listed in the directory, claimed to already be a non-sectarian institution.

In 2015, Marymount Manhattan opened a second residence hall for upperclassmen located in Cooper Square, a 12-story building to house 270 students In 2017, just under 2,000 students were enrolled representing 48 U.S. states and 36 countries. In conjunction with its core liberal arts curriculum, Marymount Manhattan offers 30 major programs of study and over 40 minors along with pre-professional programs. It is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The college offers a degree program for incarcerated women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, granting an Associates of Arts degree in social science and Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology.

In 2013, the school was featured in the industry publication Backstage as one of the top colleges in which Broadway and Tony Award-nominated actors have trained, alongside Carnegie Mellon University, Oberlin Conservatory, University of Michigan, Ithaca College, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

In July 2015, Kerry Walk was unanimously selected by the Trustees of Marymount Manhattan College as the school's eighth president. Walk resigned effective June 2023 to become president of the University of the Arts, which closed a year later. On May 29, 2024, media sources announced that Marymount Manhattan College would be merging with Northeastern University as part of its Global University System, under which the college would be renamed Northeastern University – New York City. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education approved the merger in April 2025, and the New York State Education Department authorized it in May 2025. The United States Department of Education approved the change of ownership in November 2025 and gave final approval on July 9, 2026, at which point New York State converted the institution's provisional charter into an absolute charter, completing the merger. Approximately 1,000 students enrolled at the college became Northeastern students without changes to their tuition.

Notable alumni

Alumni include prominent actors, musicians, attorneys, writers, journalists, royalty, the first female nominee for Vice President of the United States from a major party, and recipients of the Olympic Gold Medal, Tony Award, Emmy Award, and Grammy Award.