The Ithaca College Story

xi, 153 pp. A history of Ithaca College with black-and-white photographs. Ithaca College is a private college in Ithaca, New York. It was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music and is set against the backdrop of the city of Ithaca (which is separate from the town), outside Cayuga Lake, waterfalls, and gorges. Ithaca College is known for the Roy H. Park School of Communications. The college has a liberal arts focus, and offers several pre-professional programs, along with some graduate programs. Ithaca College was founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892 when a local violin teacher, William Grant Egbert, rented four rooms and arranged for the instruction of eight students. For nearly seven decades the institution flourished in the city of Ithaca, adding to its music curriculum the study of elocution, dance, physical education, speech correction, radio, business, and the liberal arts. In 1931 the conservatory was chartered as a private college under its current name, Ithaca College. The college was originally housed in the Boardman House, that later became the Ithaca College Museum of Art, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.