Wheelock College is a private, co-educational college serving undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of early childhood and elementary education, social work, and child and family studies with programs in child life and juvenile justice.

In 1888, when Lucy Wheelock stepped into the Chauncy-Hall School to begin her first kindergarten teacher training class, she could scarcely have imagined where that step would lead. At the time, she felt it was a daring venture -that she was "not equal to such a high calling." But Lucy Wheelock grew into leadership. Many decades later, Wheelock College is living testimony to her ability to shape a vision of the future, and then to change and grow.

Miss Wheelock and her training classes in Boston were at the forefront of the kindergarten movement nationally. By 1914, she had moved the Wheelock School to newly constructed facilities on Boston's Riverway, and over the next 25 years she broadened the scope of its educational programs, inventing new courses and projects that nurtured the bonds between children and families.

Convinced that early childhood education was the solution to many of society's problems, Lucy Wheelock also committed her students to learning about the lives of poor immigrant families in Boston's Portuguese, Filipino and Italian neighborhoods -an early foundation for Wheelock's continuing involvement with multicultural education and with its neighboring communities.

As a private college with a public mission, Wheelock strives to be the premier college educating people to create a safe, caring, and just world for children and families. As we have since 1888, we contribute to the vitality of families, communities, and societies by:

• Educating students who are well prepared academically and as practitioners with real-world experience -ready to be leaders and advocates, confident in their abilities, and sought after in a wide range of careers;
• Advocating for programs, policies, and laws that enhance the quality of life for children and families.