State University of New York at New Paltz

The State University of New York at New Paltz, known as SUNY New Paltz for short, is a public college in New Paltz, New York. It traces its origins to the New Paltz Classical School, a secondary institution founded in 1828 and reorganized as an academy in 1833. The College is one of only four SUNY institutions in the New York metropolitan area.

History

Following a decimating fire in 1884, the New Paltz Classical School offered their land to the state government of New York contingent upon the establishment of a normal school. In 1885, the New Paltz Normal and Training School was established to prepare teachers to practice their professions in the public schools of New York. It was granted the ability to award baccalaureate degrees in 1938, when it was renamed the State Teachers College at New Paltz; an inaugural class of 112 students graduated in 1942. A few years later, in 1947, a graduate program in education was established. When the State University of New York was established by legislative act in 1948, the Teachers College at New Paltz was one of 30 colleges associated under SUNY's umbrella. An art education program was added in 1951; in 1960, the college (assigned the moniker of the State University of New York College of Liberal Arts and Science at New Paltz in 1961) was authorized to confer liberal arts degrees.

New Paltz, New York

New Paltz (/ˈnjuː ˌpɔːlts/; locally: [ˈnupʰɔəɫz]) is a town in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 14,003 at the 2010 census. The town is located in the southeastern part of the county and is south of Kingston, New York. New Paltz contains a village also with the name New Paltz. The name of the town is derived from Palz (pronounced: [palts]), the German dialect name of the Rhenish Palatinate, now a region of Germany called "Pfalz" (pronounced: [Pfalts]).

Due to the presence of what is now the State University of New York at New Paltz, it has been a college town for over 150 years.

History

The Town of New Paltz was founded in 1678 by French Huguenots by both patent from the governor and purchase from the local Esopus tribe of the Lenape people. The Huguenots were religious refugees who had immigrated via Mannheim in the German Palatinate, where they had settled after fleeing France during religious persecution. They settled in the area of the present-day village of New Paltz (on what is now known as Huguenot Street Historic District) and established their own local government.