Russell Sage College

Russell Sage College was founded in Troy in 1916 by philanthropist Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, with the guidance of Eliza Kellas, head of the college preparatory Emma Willard School (also located in Troy, NY). Together they founded Russell Sage College as a ‘school of practical arts,’ one of the very first institutions to offer women the means of economic and social interdependence through preparation for professional careers. Today Sage continues to encourage women to take risks, discover their strengths, and apply what they’ve learned in the real world. Sage remains one of the few women’s colleges in the country that has a general education core based on women’s experiences; first-year students take ‘Women in the World’ and seniors take ‘Women Changing the World,’ reflecting their progress toward embodying the RSC motto, ‘To Be, To Know, To Do.’ Sage’s Early College program is one of the only two in the country designed for early college entry by outstanding your women in high school. Sage is proud to offer women the opportunity to excel in areas such as math and science, where they have traditionally been excluded. The College maintains the only nanotechnology business incubator on a women’s college campus in the U.S. The $5 million Incubator for Nanotechnology Ventures, Emerging Sciences, and Technologies (INVEST at Sage) is a nanotechnology incubator created in 2005 by Russell Sage College and Evident Technologies of Troy. The incubator provides space and resources to help high tech companies grow and expand, while advancing Sage’s programs in science, technology and business. Russell Sage is also home to the New York State Theatre Institute, a professional company that produces theatre for family audiences. Undergraduate research is a hallmark of RSC, which sends students annually to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and funds individual students whose presentations have been accepted at national and regional conferences. All majors have a capstone research or performance experience required of seniors, and each year the College celebrates student accomplishment at the Spring Symposium of Works in Progress. The new Donnelly Center for Undergraduate Research assists students with research and presentation skills. Also new at RSC is the Sage Language Acquisition Program (SLAP), which adds Italian and Chinese to the current offerings of Spanish and French. SLAP features innovative teaching methods that focus on oral comprehension and fluency as well as the cultural context of language. SLAP students live in International House, one of several Living/Learning opportunities at the College. Finally, many Russell Sage students elect to accelerate into masters or doctoral programs at Sage. By using summers to complete some degree requirements, students in any major may complete their undergraduate work in three to three and a half years, and move directly into a graduate program in Business, Education, Psychology, Occupational Therapy, or Physical Therapy. Accelerated programs are also available in conjunction with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (math/engineering), Albany Law School (3+3 BA/JD), and Albany Medical Center (early assurance Medical School program, articulation agreement with Physician’s Assistant Program). New in Fall 2009 is the Renaissance Baccalaureate, a three-year accelerated degree offered in a number of multi-disciplinary majors (Environmental Studies, International and Globalization Studies, American Studies among them), which features a 15-credit interdisciplinary summer course called Sage on the Hudson.