Product Code Database
Becker College was a private college in Worcester and Leicester, Massachusetts. Becker College traced its history from the union of two Massachusetts educational institutions—one founded in 1784 and the other in 1887. The college closed at the end of the 2020–21 academic year.
The college offered more than 40 undergraduate degree programs including nursing programs, a veterinary science program, and video game design and development programs. The college's 2016–17 enrollment was 1,892. Becker College has more than 21,000 alumni. "About Becker" URL accessed on May 25, 2011.
Colonel Ebenezer Crafts of Sturbridge and Jacob Davis of Charlton saw a need to provide schooling for children of modest families who lived in Central Massachusetts. The state legislature was petitioned, funds were raised and, in 1784, Leicester Academy was founded. The charter was signed by Governor John Hancock, and Samuel Adams, President of the Massachusetts State Senate; major benefactors included Moses Gill, a future lieutenant governor. It was the third academy founded in post-independence Massachusetts, after the founding of Governor Dummer Academy at Byfield in 1782 and of Phillips Academy at Andover in 1778.
Samuel C. Crafts, son of the founder, Ephraim Allen of Sturbridge and Samuel Swan of Leicester were members of the inaugural class. All three later graduated from Harvard College.
The Leicester Academy became defunct in 1917. According to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Leicester Academy existed until 1952, when it became Leicester Junior College.
Edward Carl Anton (E.C.A.) Becker founded Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1887 and served as its president from 1887 through 1907.
Becker was born in Peoria, Illinois, on April 30, 1855. He attended Peoria Bryant & Stratton Business College, graduating from both the business and telegraph departments. Following graduation, he served as a teacher and principal at the college. He went on to purchase and manage the Rockford Business College in Rockford, Illinois, and the Freeport Business College in Elgin, Illinois.
After Becker's successes in the Midwest, he moved east, managing a school in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, before arriving in Worcester to lead the business department at Hinman College. In 1887 he established Becker's Business College in the Clark building at 492 Main Street in Worcester. On opening day, one student showed up. By the end of the week 30 were in attendance. The college offered courses in bookkeeping, penmanship, arithmetic, shorthand and typing for both men and women.
E.C.A. Becker was a member of the Worcester Board of Trade and the Worcester Economic Club. In his free time he enjoyed hunting in Maine, a hobby showcased by two large moose heads that adorned the Becker reception office until the early 1930s. He was also known to have had a pleasant sense of humor.
Upon his death in 1907, the college had an average annual enrollment of 200 students. Graduates excelled in the counting rooms of Worcester's manufacturing and mercantile establishments and on their civil service examinations.
In 1907, E.C.A. Becker's wife Mary Charlotte Becker formed a corporation to manage the college, serving as treasurer, with son-in-law Walter S. Doud as president, and daughter Eva M. as clerk.
In 1938 the Medical Secretarial course was introduced and became a national model that attracted a number of students. With a critical need for student housing in the area, in 1939 the college purchased a late-Victorian house, built in 1893 on Cedar Street. This home became the first Becker dormitory.
In 2010, Robert E. Johnson assumed the presidency of the college. In April 2011, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts designated Becker as the home of the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI). The Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) was a statewide center, designated by the Commonwealth, for academic cooperation, entrepreneurship, and economic development across the Massachusetts digital and video games ecosystem.
In 2014, the college launched its first master's degree, a Master of Arts in mental health counseling. The following year, the college signed a memorandum of understanding with Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus to establish the Yunus Social Business Centre @ Becker College. The centre was established in partnership with the Seven Hills Foundation and focused on identifying real-world social problems and creating innovative, self-sustaining solutions to transform lives and communities. "Becker College to open first Yunus Social Business Centre in U.S." URL accessed on May 29, 2015.
In May 2017, Becker College welcomed its 11th president, Nancy P. Crimmin.
In 2016, 100% of Becker nursing students passed their Registered Nurses examination. "2014 Performance Summary for Massachusetts Nursing Education Programs","Division of Health Professions Licensure within the Department of Public Health", URL accessed on May 20, 2015.
The game design program at Becker was consistently recognized on The Princeton Review's list of top undergraduate schools to study game design. In 2016, the program was ranked at number five. By the time the College closed in 2021, the program was ranked number two.
After Becker College closed in 2021, MassDigi continued to operate, from a new home at the nearby Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
On Worcester's quad is a monument commemorating the pitching of the first perfect game in professional baseball, on June 12, 1880, by Lee Richmond of Worcester, against Cleveland, in a National League game. The game took place on the Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds, where the college, and much of the neighborhood, now stands.
One of the most prominent buildings on the former Leicester campus was the Rev. Samuel May House, built in 1835 and officially recognized in 2008 as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Rev. Samuel May was a leading anti-slavery figure for over three decades and a prominent individual in the New England literary community during the mid-1800s. His wife was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) as well as an outspoken proponent for women's suffrage. Frequent visitors to the May House included Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Booker T. Washington, George Hoar, May's brother-in-law, Bronson Alcott, and his daughter Louisa May Alcott. It is known that the young author spent summers at the May House and it has been reported that she wrote some of her works from her room on the third floor. The house currently serves as a residence hall.
The college broke ground in the spring 2011 on a new campus center in Leicester. The George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Campus Center was opened in September 2012. The new building was adjacent to the previous student center and houses a dining hall and fitness center as well as academic, office, and social spaces.
Becker has two campus libraries with a combined collection of 73,467 cataloged items as well as periodicals and newspapers
The 2007–08 women's basketball team was the first team to qualify for the NCAA tournament. The soccer, tennis, field hockey, golf, basketball, baseball, volleyball and softball teams competed in the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC). The football team was a member of the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC). Men's ice hockey was an associate member of the CCC. Women's lacrosse was a member of the New England Women's Lacrosse Alliance (NEWLA). Men's lacrosse was an associate member of the NECC. The equestrian team was a member of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA/ Zone 1, Region 1). The women's ice hockey team, which was introduced in the fall of 2014, was a member of Eastern College Athletic Conference Northeast (ECAC).
Their website has been archived by d3archive.com at beckerhawks.com.d3archive.com
|
|
