The Union College community celebrated the School’s 220th anniversary, today (February 26, 2015), with a Founders Day ceremony in Memorial Chapel.  In 1795, Union College was the first institution for higher education chartered by the New York Board of Regents, also making it the first non-denominational college in the country. The School was originally located in Schenectady’s Stockade neighborhood (see the collage below), but moved a half-mile down Union Street to its current location in 1814. Its campus was the first fully-planned campus in America, predating Thomas Jefferson’s design of the University of Virginia by several years.

– click on the collage for a larger version –

 Union’s planned campus has been well-nurtured over the past two centuries, and it was recently named one of America’s Most Beautiful Campus — ranked 12th — by the Princeton Review. (For more of its history, see Schenectady Daily Gazette…