Briarcliff College

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Briarcliff College was an institution of higher learning for women located in the village of Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, New York.

Founded in the early years of the Twentieth Century, the College was a two-year institution until 1965, during the presidency of Charles E. Atkins, when it began awarding four-year Bachelor's degrees.^[1]

With the growing popularity of coeducation in the 1970s, women's colleges all over America found themselves struggling to survive. When, in the spring of 1977, then Briarcliff president, Josiah Bunting III, an author and Vietnam War veteran, announced that he was leaving to take charge of Hampden-Sydney, a men's college in Virginia, the trustees found themselves at a crossroads.

Rather than continue to struggle, the trustees voted to sell the leafy suburban campus to Pace University, a city-based institution with multiple campuses.

Please note that Briarcliff College was not located at and should not be confused with the nearby historic building called Briarcliff Lodge, which burned in 2003.