Claremont, Calif. (November 6, 2018)— College Consensus released its 50 Underrated Colleges Doing Great Things, which ranks Pitzer College #8 in the country for academic innovation.
“Oftentimes, it’s the small or less prominent colleges that are the most creative, making programs and initiatives that are worth imitating, emulating, and spreading far and wide. Those are the schools and programs that College Consensus wants to highlight in the Top 50 Underrated Colleges Doing Great Things,” says the publication.
College Consensus’ Great Things list largely focuses on Unique Curricular Designs, Model or Influential Programs, and Community Engagement and Service.
Pitzer College has been an innovator since its establishment in 1963. The College was one of the first in the nation to offer an environmental studies program in the 1970s and was the first in the country to offer a degree in secular studies in 2010. In 2012, the College established the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, which builds upon and expands Pitzer’s longstanding commitment to protecting the environment. This summer, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Pitzer College a $1.1 million grant to expand its prison education program – the nation’s first structured college curriculum of its kind—to the rest of The Claremont Colleges.
Pitzer College’s five Core Values of social responsibility, intercultural understanding, interdisciplinary learning, student engagement and environmental sustainability are the guiding principles of its academic curriculum and institutional practices. Pitzer is a national leader in most undergraduate student Fulbrights awarded and 100 percent of its students engage in service learning or community service before graduation. Named annually among the country’s “greenest colleges”, Pitzer was the first private college in California to divest its endowment from fossil fuel stocks in 2014, and in 2017, the College along with BlackRock, Inc. announced the creation of the first-ever ESG-focused, fossil fuel-free global equity index fund for nonprofits.
In September, U.S. News and World Reports named Pitzer among its “Most Innovative Schools” in its 2019 Best Colleges rankings.
