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Please share your thoughts on your needs, wants, and interests for a new Admission and Career Education Center through an ongoing survey from our design team, available at this link.
The Kautz Admission House, as it is currently known, was designed by the firm of Pilcher & Tachau and opened in 1908 as a social club for employees. Lovingly restored in 1995 by Vassar Alumna Linda Yowell, the clubhouse was repurposed as an elegant home for the Office of Admission, made possible by generous gifts from Carol and James Kautz. With time, and increasing numbers of prospective students and their families visiting campus, the Office of Admission has outgrown Kautz Admission House. Being of residential scale and design, the building cannot accommodate nor withstand its nearly 20,000 annual visitors or provide a fully accessible experience. Furthermore, its location directly behind Main Building and the College Center is hard to find when visitors arrive on campus, and there are a limited number of parking spaces in front of or near the building. Reaching these parking spaces generates undesirable levels of vehicular traffic through the center of campus, which goes against long-term efforts to enhance the navigability of the campus. Located nearby in Main Building, the current site for the Office of Career Education faces similar challenges. Career mentors, prospective employers, and other guests coming from off-campus face limited parking availability and a difficult-to-find office. Finally, both of these departments lack spaces of sufficient quantity, size and quality to perform their contemporary and projected work for the College.
Current site of Kautz Admission House
An early sketch of one possible approach to the site for the Admission and Career Education Building in North Lot
To address these challenges, Vassar evaluated a number of possible locations and options. These studies resulted in a strategic solution to address these issues. Vassar has begun the design process for a new building for Admission and Career Education near the tennis courts and Collegeview Avenue. This location near the North Lot has suitable parking that can be expanded as needed, is easier for visitors to find, and keeps vehicular traffic on the campus periphery. Another added benefit of this option is that campus visitors will be closer to the Arlington Business District, where they will have easy access to restaurants, the Vassar College Store, the Institute for the Liberal Arts, and Gordon Commons. Providing a new entrance point aligned with Fairmont Avenue will ensure a smooth and safe entry to the campus and enhance the experience of entering campus along its north edge. This entrance will no longer appear as a service entrance behind Gordon Commons, with awkward and unsafe intersections, but be elevated to a primary entrance by which visitors will experience the intimate connections between the College and the surrounding community.
This project makes a bold statement about Vassar's future-facing commitment to our students and the ambition we have for their success. Vassar is not just a place to get a world-class liberal arts education, but a place to build the skills needed to thrive and be successful in their life’s journey. Co-locating the Offices of Admission and Career Education will allow them to work in synergy around a common goal: demonstrating the impact and outcomes of a Vassar education, whether for prospective students and families, current students, employers, graduate and professional schools, alumni, and parents. In addition to this ethos connecting the work of admission and career education, both offices have a shared need for a state-of-the-art location that will allow us to grow and shape our programs with both distinct and common spaces.
Vassar has contracted with Maryann Thompson Architects (MTA) to design the new facility and surrounding space. We are now in the process of refining the building scope to ensure the needs of the entire campus community are met. Please consider sharing your thoughts on the possible facility in our ongoing survey of campus.
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