The Mount Carmel campus, from atop Sleeping Giant (April 2009)
What became Quinnipiac University was founded in 1929 by Samuel W. Tator,[9] a business professor and politician. Phillip Troup, a Yale College graduate, was another founder, and became its first president[9] until his death in 1939. Tator's wife, Irmagarde Tator, a Mount Holyoke College graduate, also played a major role in the fledgling institution's nurturing as its first bursar. Additional founders were E. Wight Bakke, who later became a professor of economics at Yale, and Robert R. Chamberlain, who headed a furniture company.[9]
The new institution was conceived in reaction to Northeastern University's abandonment of its New Haven, Connecticut, program at the onset of the Great Depression. Originally, it was located in New Haven and called the Connecticut College of Commerce. On opening its doors in 1929, it enrolled under 200, and its first graduating class comprised eight students. In 1935, the college changed its name to the Junior College of Commerce. In 1951, the institution was renamed Quinnipiac College, in honor of the Quinnipiac Indian tribe that once inhabited Greater New Haven. In 1952, the school relocated to a larger campus in New Haven, and also assumed administrative management of Larson College, a private women's college.
Quinnipiac's Arnold Bernhard Library and clock tower, focus of main campus quadrangle (August 2008)
Student journalism controversy
The university's official student newspaper is The Quinnipiac Chronicle.[11] In 2007 and 2008, Quinnipiac briefly drew national attention over the university's control over the Chronicle and other aspects of students' speech.[12]
In the fall 2007 semester, junior Jason Braff, then-editor of the Chronicle, openly criticized a university policy that forbade the newspaper from publishing news online before it was published in print. Manuel Carreiro, Quinnipiac's vice president and dean of students, allegedly threatened to fire Braff for disagreeing with school policies.[13]
Quinnipiac officials decided to make the Chronicle independent from the university. Angry with this plan, Braff and other staff decided to leave the Chronicle at the end of the Spring 2008 semester; all applicants for editorial positions withdrew. Former Chronicle staff members founded Quad News, an independent online paper. University officials alledgedly instructed varsity coaches, staff and athletes not to speak to Quad News reporters.[14] They also threatened to shut down the university's chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), claiming that their meetings were used as a cover for Quad News meetings. Quad News stopped their meetings with SPJ.[15] The move prompted a public letter from national SPJ leaders, expressing concern over the university's actions. Both staffs recognized the other publication as legitimate.[16]
2010 title IX discrimination case
On July 21, 2010, a federal judge ruled that Quinnipiac violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to provide equal treatment to women's athletic teams. The judge, Stefan Underhill, determined that Quinnipiac's decision to eliminate the women's volleyball team as well as its attempt to treat cheerleading as a competitive sport and its manipulation of reporting with regard to the numbers of male and female athletes amounted to unlawful discrimination against female students. Underhill ruled that competitive cheerleading was currently too underdeveloped and unorganized and then ordered that the school maintain its volleyball program for the 2010–11 season.[17][18]
2015 ADA discrimination case
In 2015, the university reached a settlement with the federal government over allegations that the university violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by "placing a student who had been diagnosed with depression on a mandatory medical leave of absence without first considering options for the student's continued enrollment." The university agreed to pay the former student over $32,000 to pay off her student loan and compensate her for "emotional distress, pain and suffering". The university also had agreed to implement a new policy of nondiscrimination against applicants or students on the basis of disability, examine changes that will allow students with mental health disabilities to participate in educational programs while seeking mental health treatment and provide additional ADA training for all staff.[19]
In 2021, 72.5% of undergraduate applicants were accepted with matriculated students having an average GPA of 3.47. Quinnipiac is "test optional" for standardized tests for undergraduate applicants, but encourages submitting SAT or ACT scores, or both. For those submitting scores, the average SAT score was 1175 and average ACT score was 26. Test scores are required for Quinnipiac's Accelerated Dual-Degree Bachelor's/JD (3+3) and Dual-Degree BS/MHS in Physician Assistant (4+27 months) programs, or for those that have been homeschooled.[22][23]
The university operates several media outlets, including a professionally run commercial radio station, WATX, founded by journalist and Quinnipiac professor Lou Adler. The university also operates a student-run FM radio station WQAQ, which concurrently streams on the Internet. An award-winning[24] student-run television station, Q30 Television, is streamed online. Also, a student-produced newspaper, the Chronicle, established in 1929, publishes 2,500 copies every Wednesday. Students also run a literary magazine, the Montage, a yearbook, the Summit, the Quinnipiac Bobcats Sports Network (an online sports-focused broadcast), and the Quinnipiac Barnacle[25] (a parody news organization). Unaffiliated with the school, but run by students, is also an online newspaper, the Quad News.[26]
Quinnipiac is home to one of the world's largest collections of art commemorating the Great Irish Famine. The collection is contained in Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum (Músaem An Ghorta Mhóir) just off the Mount Carmel Campus.[27]
In May 2014, Quinnipiac laid off 16 full-time but non-tenured faculty, with 11 of those from the College of Arts and Sciences, with no advance notice of the staff reduction. The cuts followed several years of a "stalled hiring" and a faculty salary freeze. The layoffs were mostly in departments that had experienced reduced enrollment in recent years, and enrollment was expected to be down by 12 percent in the fall 2014 term.[28]
Quinnipiac is 153rd in the U.S. News & World Report 2020 rankings of national universities.[33] For 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked the physician assistant school 15th nationwide, the law school 122nd, the medical school 94–122, and the business school 99–131.[34]
Zippia name Quinnipiac University as the No. 1 college in the United States for getting a job in 2021, but Zippia did not report salaries.[35]
Campuses
Quinnipiac University consists of three campuses: the Mount Carmel campus off of Mount Carmel Avenue in Hamden; the York Hill campus off of Sherman Avenue in Hamden, and the North Haven Campus in North Haven, just north of New Haven, Connecticut.
The oldest of these campuses is the Mount Carmel Campus, at the foot of Sleeping Giant State Park. The Arnold Bernhard Library, Carl Hansen Student Center, university administration, and many of the student residences are found on this campus. The campus area is a census-designated place (CDP); it first appeared as a CDP in the 2020 Census with a population of 3,639.[36]
The York Hill Campus, located on a hill about a half-mile from the Mount Carmel Campus, began with the development of the M&T Bank Arena (formerly People’s United Arena). In 2010 this was joined by a new student center as well as expanded parking and residence facilities as part of a $300 million expansion of the 250-acre (1.0 km2) campus.[37] York Hill is a "green" campus, making use of renewable energy and environmentally friendly resources, including one of the first major wind farms integrated into a university campus.[38]
For statistical reporting purposes, the Mount Carmel and York Hill campuses were listed together as the Quinnipiac University census-designated place prior to the 2020 census.[39]
In 2007, Quinnipiac acquired a 100-acre (0.40 km2) campus in North Haven, Connecticut, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and has been gradually converting it for use by graduate programs at the university.[40]
Quinnipiac's polling institute receives national recognition for its independent surveys of residents throughout the United States. It conducts public opinion polls on politics and public policy as a public service as well as for academic research.[41] The poll has been cited by major news outlets throughout North America and Europe, including The Washington Post,[42]Fox News,[43]USA Today,[44]The New York Times,[45]CNN,[46] and Reuters.[47]
The polling operation began informally in 1988 in conjunction with a marketing class.[41] It became formal in 1994 when the university hired a CBS News analyst to assess the data being gained.[41] It subsequently focused on the Northeastern states, gradually expanding during presidential elections to cover swing states as well.[41] The institute receives funding from the university,[41] with its phone callers generally being work study students or local residents. The polls have been rated highly by FiveThirtyEight for accuracy in predicting primary and general elections.[48] In 2018 Politico called the Quinnipiac poll "the most significant player among a number of schools that have established a national polling footprint."[49]
There are seven men's varsity sports and 14 women's varsity sports,[53] with no football team.[53]
The team with the largest following on campus and in the area is the men's ice hockey team under established coach Rand Pecknold,[54] which has been nationally ranked at times; during the 2009–2010 season they entered the top ten of the national polls for the first time.[55] The team was the number-one nationally ranked hockey program for parts of the 2012–2013 season, reaching the Frozen Four for the first time in the program's history. They advanced to the national championship, ultimately falling to rival Yale. They also advanced to the 2016 Frozen Four, losing to North Dakota in the national championship game. In 2023, the Bobcats defeated Minnesota 3-2, 10 seconds into overtime, to capture the 2023 NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship, the first NCAA National Championship for Quinnipiac in any sport.
In the late 2000s the men's basketball team gained a greater following under new head coach Tom Moore, a disciple of UConn Huskies men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun.[54] Both men's and women's ice hockey and basketball teams play at the $52 million M&T Bank Arena, opened in 2007.[54] The women's lacrosse team has also been quite strong. Men's cross country captured 4 NEC titles in 5 years between 2004 and 2008. The athletics program has been under pressures common to other universities, and at the close of the 2008–2009 academic year, men's golf, men's outdoor track, men's indoor track and women's volleyball were dropped as a cost-cutting measure, although the last of these was restored (as a result of a Title IX suit[56]).
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