Since its 1975 inception, Marymount College has fostered a unique cultural and academic atmosphere in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Marymount holds a Cultural Arts Program every spring and fall. The college offers dance and music recitals, art exhibits, film series, theater works and lectures by visiting experts. This past March, for instance (yes, we missed it, but Patch will give you plenty of notice for the next event), Dr. Geoffrey W. Marcy of UC Berkeley talked about the search for habitable planets and other life forms in the universe.
The lectures and shows are free, the venues of which were completely filled with students and visitors from all across the South Bay. Kelly Curtis, Marymount's director of communications, was thrilled by the response.
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"It's wonderful for us, to see so many people come out and enjoy," Curtis said.
The Cultural Arts Program has been a feature of Marymount for decades, she said. In addition, the campus holds all sorts of community events — from book club meetings to holiday boutiques.
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The RPV campus actually is Marymount College's third incarnation. The school started in Westwood, just north of UCLA on Sunset Boulevard, and Marymount High School still occupies that piece of real estate. In 1960, Marymount's college for women moved to a 45-acre site on the Peninsula. Cardinal James Francis McIntyre dedicated and blessed the new campus on April 15, 1961, and in June he returned to hand out the first 26 degrees earned (at least in part) at the new locale.
Marymount was a four-year college back then, but when it formed a partnership with Loyola University, baccalaureate degrees moved to Loyola-Marymount College in Westchester. The PV campus became a Junior College. It kept growing, became a co-ed school, and moved to its current location in 1975. Marymount recently began offering four-year Bachelor of Arts degrees in Business, Media Studies and Liberal Arts.
Some things have not changed, such as Marymount's religious tradition. The Catholic Order of the Sacred Heart of Mary always has administered the school. Also, community involvement, lifelong learning and support of the arts continues as Marymount's mission.
