Curry College

Curry College

Seal of Curry College
Former names	School of Elocution and Expression (1879–1885), School of Expression (1885–1943)
Motto	Rem Tene Verba Sequentur
Type	Private
Established	1879
Endowment	US $70 million (2012)
President	Kenneth K. Quigley, Jr.
Students	4,700
Undergraduates	2,100 traditional
Postgraduates	1,000
Other students	1,650 nontraditional
Location	Milton, Massachusetts, United States Coordinates: 42°14′6.63″N 71°6′48.87″W / 42.2351750°N 71.1135750°W / 42.2351750; -71.1135750
Campus	Suburban, 131-acre (0.53 km2)
Colors	Purple and white
Athletics	NCAA (CCC), Curry Athletics official site
Sports	Ice hockey, baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, cross-country running, softball
Nickname	Colonels
Website	www.curry.edu

Curry College is a private liberal-based institution in Milton, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts that was founded as the School of Elocution and Expression in 1879. It was founded by Samuel Silas Curry.

Curry College is presently led by President Kenneth Quigley, a graduate of Boston College and Villanova School of Law. President Quigley, who has served as Curry President since 1996, is recognized for his leadership in increasing the student enrollment at Curry and engaging Curry in an extensive building campaign. Under President Quigley, the school's endowment has grown to seventy million dollars. President Quigley is a respected academic leader throughout the region including and served as the Past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the recognized accrediting body for all colleges and K-12 schools in New England.

Curry College was founded in 1879 on Boston's Commonwealth Avenue by Anna Baright as the School of Elocution and Expression. Baright graduated from the Boston University School of Oratory in 1877 and was described by one of her professors as "the greatest woman reader in the country." This was a significant compliment in an era of oratory when speakers like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain were paid thousands to read lengthy pieces of their work. " In 1882, Baright married Boston minister and fellow Boston University alumnus and professor Samuel Silas Curry.

The School of Elocution and Oratory had many prominent Bostonians on its Board including Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Melville Bell, the father of Alexander Graham Bell, legendary Harvard President Charles W. Eliot and author William Dean Howells who wrote The Rise of Silas Lapham and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among the students in attendance were Smiley Blanton and Sara Stinchfield Hawk, who became pioneers in the field of speech language pathology.

In 1885, the school became the School of Expression and, in 1888, the school was chartered by the state. Silas Curry became the head of the school, and Anna Baright Curry became a professor. Former Boston University School of Oratory professor and telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell became the school's first chancellor from 1907 to 1922 when Mr. Bell died. Bell, as a professor at Boston University, taught Samuel Silas Curry and, according to the recollections of Curry's daughter, Silas Curry was present when Bell made the first telephone call in 1876 . After Mr. Bell's death, Samuel Silas Curry and Anna Baright ran the school until their respective deaths in 1921 and 1924. In 1932, Curry began a radio broadcasting major, still considered among the oldest of its kind in the country. In 1938, the Massachusetts Legislature gave the institution the power to confer the degrees of Bachelor of Science of Oratory and Master of Science of Oratory. In 1943, the School of Expression became Curry College to reflect its founders.