Seattle University and Cornish College of the Arts Announce They Will be Joining Together

 

Seattle University and Cornish College of the Arts announced last month the signing of a Letter of Intent for joining the institutions, with Cornish becoming the Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University and continuing to educate students at its South Lake Union campus.

Both institutions are non-profits with Cornish College enrolling 502 students and Seattle University, a Jesuit institution, enrolling 7,182 students. 

If you are interested in recent trends for closures, mergers, and acquisitions access College Closures since 2009 in the index at the right of any College History Garden page. There are separate tabs for non-profit closures, for-profit closures, and one for mergers and acquisitions. Each tab includes basic information for the institutions, i.e., Carnegie Classification, sector, accrediting agency, and the IPEDS unitid.

Cornish was founded as Cornish School of Music in 1914. It was briefly advertised as Cornish School of Music, Language, and Dancing in 1915 and later, Cornish College of the Arts in 1921.  After the Depression era it referred to itself as the Cornish School. In 1955, the name changed to Cornish School of the Allied Arts and in 1977, to Cornish Institute of Allied Arts. Then in 1986 it became Cornish College of the Arts.

Seattle University was founded in 1891 as the School of the Immaculate Conception. The name changed to Seattle College in 1898 and then to Seattle University in 1948.