Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vassar College was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, a brewer from Poughkeepsie, New York. It was chartered as Vassar Female College, the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States.
Vassar became coeducational in 1969. The formal decision followed the trustees' rejection of a proposed merger with Yale University, after which the college chose to admit men independently.
Maria Mitchell, an astronomer, was the first person appointed to the Vassar faculty, in 1865. She went on to become one of the most prominent scientists associated with the college.
For the class entering in fall 2023, Vassar accepted 17.7 percent of applicants, from a pool of 12,145 applications. The admit rate has declined steadily from 27 percent in 2016.
Notable Vassar graduates include Meryl Streep (1971), Grace Hopper (1928), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917), Elizabeth Bishop (1934), and Vera Rubin (1948). Suffragists Crystal Eastman (1903) and Lucy Burns (1902) also graduated from Vassar.
Main Building, designed by Smithsonian architect James Renwick Jr. and completed in 1865, is considered one of the best examples of Second Empire architecture in the United States. When it opened, it was the largest building in the country by floor space and housed the entire college. It is now a National Historic Landmark.