The paramount obligation of a college is to develop in its students
the ability to think clearly and independently, and the ability to live confidently, courageously and hopefully. --Ellen Browning Scripps
Founded by the scion of the newspaper publishing family and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, Scripps College is a residential small liberal arts college for women, in Southern California. It is a one of the Claremont Colleges, and shares some facilities and allows cross-registration with the other colleges of the consortium. The art, music, and media studies departments of the Claremont Colleges (the colleges other than Pomona College, which has their own) are based at Scripps.
The campus was designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann in the "California Style", characterized by red-tiled roofs, abode-like exteriors, and interior courtyards. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A twelve-foot high wall surrounds the 30-acre campus.*
Some of the notable sights and places of the Claremont Colleges are on the Scripps campus.
- On the main commons is a five-foot tall bronze sculpture of a zipper.
- The campus café, The Motley, is the best student hangout in the Claremont Colleges.
- There is a small walled garden in the center of the campus that is rarely open, but beautiful.
Additional information may be found at www.scrippscollege.edu
* While cloistering the women's school may seemed a natural defense against the threat of predation from Claremont Men's College (co-ed since 1976) to the south, the twelve-foot wall around the campus of Scripps College was originally built to stem the flow of mudslides from the San Gabriel Mountains. John McPhee's book The Control of Nature (also included in the omnibus volume Annals of the Former World) contains more information about the ominous situation of east Los Angeles County. (Thanks to Jongleur, himself once a part of the Harvey Mudd College Calculus Tutorial and Social Tea, for reminding me of the mudslides.)
| 
