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The Turning Point: |
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July 1968 was a month of tragedy in a year of assassination, social upheaval,
and political disruption—a year that also ended with three astronauts
circling the moon. Yet on July 1 of that year a new college was founded
in The Bronx, a positive event for the borough, that would in time benefit
not only the young men and women educated in its classrooms, but also
the community at large. The mission of Lehman College was then, and remains
today, to enrich the human spirit and to offer to as many as can realize
their own potential the opportunity to be so enriched. Twenty years later, while continuing as the primary senior public college
in the borough, Lehman has also assumed leadership in the arts. The year
1980 saw the opening of Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, a splendid
cultural complex with incomparable facilities, which brings to our campus
some of the world's finest musicians, dancers, and other stage artists.
In addition to adult paying audiences, the Center admits thousands of
school-age children free of charge to see I live performance of dance,
theatre, opera, and jazz. In 1984, Lehman College Art Gallery launched its first season. The gallery
stresses education and community service, offering gallery visits and
hands-on workshops to classes from Bronx elementary, junior high, and
high schools. Both make accessible to the citizens of The Bronx and of
the New York metropolitan region, cultural programs of the highest caliber. We can be proud of the accomplishments of these two decades and hopeful
of even greater success in the decades to come. Above all, we can rest
assured that Lehman College will keep faith with its students and with
the community by continuing to respond quickly and appropriately to new
needs and new challenges, and by always providing the strongest liberal
arts education and the richest cultural experience possible to all who
enter its doors. |