Claremont McKenna College

Early history Known as Claremont Men's College at its founding in September 1946, CMC began with seven faculty and an incoming class of 86 students, [ 13 ] many of them World War II veterans attending college on the G.I. Bill . [ 14 ] Claremont Men's College was the third Claremont College, after Pomona College and Scripps College . The college's motto is " Crescit cum commercio civitas ", or "Civilization prospers with commerce". [ 15 ]

In 1975, CMC trustees voted to admit women in a two-thirds vote supported by students representing the Associated Students of Claremont Men's College; [ 16 ] the first women admitted to CMC joined in 1976. The move followed a national trend toward coeducation among peer schools. CMC president Jack L. Stark , who led the college during the transition, considered it CMC’s most important moment. [ 16 ] The women of CMC's earliest classes are known as "Pioneers" and graduated with degrees that still bore the name "Claremont's Mens College". [ 17 ] In 1981, CMC was renamed Claremont McKenna College in honor of founding trustee Donald McKenna. [ 18 ] In November 1989, the father of a CMC student hired a stripper to perform in the college’s dining hall, sparking protests among some students. Then-CMC president Jack Stark told The New York Times he did not wish to comment on whether the incident was "degrading to women". [ 19 ]

On September 27, 2007, the college announced a $200 million gift from alumnus and trustee Robert Addison Day to create the "Robert Day Scholars Program" and a master's program in finance . [ 20 ] CMC literature professor Robert Faggen sent a letter signed by several other literature professors to CMC president Pamela Gann , saying they were concerned the gift would "distort the college into a single focus trade school." [ 21 ] In June 2020, RePEc ranked the college's economics department, the Robert Day School , 4th on its list of top US Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges. [ 22 ] In January 2012, a high-ranking official later identified as former dean of admissions Richard C. Vos [ 23 ] was discovered to have been inflating SAT scores by 10–20 points over six years in submissions to the U.S. News & World Report . [ 24 ] [ 25 ] TIME magazine wrote that “such a small differential could not have significantly affected U.S. News & World Report rankings.” [ 26 ] A study commissioned by the college claimed to have found no evidence that the misrepresentations were meant to inflate the school’s ranking in the publication’s annual listings. [ 27 ] The controversy prompted Forbes to omit CMC from its yearly rankings in 2013. [ 28 ] In November 2015, the college made national news [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ] when the dean of students resigned after students protested what they called a lack of institutional resources for marginalized students; they interpreted an email message the dean had sent a student as implying that minority students did not fit the "CMC mold": We have a lot to do as a college and a community. Would you be willing to talk to me about these issues? .... They are important to me and the DOS staff and we are working on how we can better serve students, especially those that don't fit our CMC mold. [ 32 ] The same dean's response to an incident of allegedly culturally appropriative Halloween costumes was also seen as lacking.

Protests closely followed and were associated with the 2015 University of Missouri protests . [ 33 ] [ 34 ] On April 6, 2017, about 300 student protesters (many of whom attended the other Claremont Colleges) blockaded the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum in an attempt to shut down a speech by conservative pundit Heather Mac Donald . [ 35 ] [ 36 ] The college livestreamed the talk, as audiences were unable to enter the building. The college disciplined seven of its students who participated in the blockade, including suspending two for a semester and three for a year. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] In 2021, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education ranked CMC first among all U.S. colleges and universities for free speech. [ 39 ] The Campaign for CMC: Responsible Leadership raised more than $1 billion to double the size of its campus and expand science programs, faculty, and financial aid. [ 40 ]