Becker College was a private college in Worcester and Leicester, Massachusetts. Becker College traced its history from the union of two Massachusetts educational institutions—one founded in 1784 and the other in 1887. The college closed at the end of the 2020–21 academic year.
The college offered more than 40 undergraduate degree programs including nursing programs, a veterinary science program, and video game design and development programs. The college's 2016–17 enrollment was 1,892. Becker College has more than 21,000 alumni.
History
The institution comprised two separate campuses located six miles apart, each with its own residence halls, library, dining hall and academic facilities.
Leicester
Becker's Leicester campus was home to Leicester Academy, founded in 1784. The campus was situated within the town common, which in the 18th century, consisted of a tavern, a meetinghouse and the first home built in Leicester, now known as the May House.
Colonel Ebenezer Crafts of Sturbridge and Jacob Davis of Charlton saw a need to provide schooling for children of modest families who lived in Central Massachusetts. The state legislature was petitioned, funds were raised and, in 1784, Leicester Academy was founded. The charter was signed by Governor John Hancock, and Samuel Adams, President of the Massachusetts State Senate; major benefactors included Moses Gill, a future lieutenant governor. It was the third academy founded in post-independence Massachusetts, after the founding of Governor Dummer Academy at Byfield in 1782 and of Phillips Academy at Andover in 1778.
Samuel C. Crafts, son of the founder, Ephraim Allen of Sturbridge and Samuel Swan of Leicester were members of the inaugural class. All three later graduated from Harvard College.
The Leicester Academy became defunct in 1917. According to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Leicester Academy existed until 1952, when it became Leicester Junior College.
Worcester
Three years after the Leicester Academy centennial, in 1887, Becker's Business College was founded.
Edward Carl Anton (E.C.A.) Becker founded Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1887 and served as its president from 1887 through 1907.
Becker was born in Peoria, Illinois, on April 30, 1855. He attended Peoria Bryant & Stratton Business College, graduating from both the business and telegraph departments. Following graduation, he served as a teacher and principal at the college. He went on to purchase and manage the Rockford Business College in Rockford, Illinois, and the Freeport Business College in Elgin, Illinois.
After Becker's successes in the Midwest, he moved east, managing a school in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, before arriving in Worcester to lead the business department at Hinman College. In 1887 he established Becker's Business College in the Clark building at 492 Main Street in Worcester. On opening day, one student showed up. By the end of the week 30 were in attendance. The college offered courses in bookkeeping, penmanship, arithmetic, shorthand and typing for both men and women.
E.C.A. Becker was a member of the Worcester Board of Trade and the Worcester Economic Club. In his free time he enjoyed hunting in Maine, a hobby showcased by two large moose heads that adorned the Becker reception office until the early 1930s. He was also known to have had a pleasant sense of humor.
Upon his death in 1907, the college had an average annual enrollment of 200 students. Graduates excelled in the counting rooms of Worcester's manufacturing and mercantile establishments and on their civil service examinations.
In 1907, E.C.A. Becker's wife Mary Charlotte Becker formed a corporation to manage the college, serving as treasurer, with son-in-law Walter S. Doud as president, and daughter Eva M. as clerk.
In 1938 the Medical Secretarial course was introduced and became a national model that attracted a number of students. With a critical need for student housing in the area, in 1939 the college purchased a late-Victorian house, built in 1893 on Cedar Street. This home became the first Becker dormitory.
Campus mergers
In 1974, Becker and Leicester began working together to expand academic offerings and provide broader social and recreational opportunities for their students. As a result of their close cooperation, the two were formally consolidated in 1977 as the Worcester campus and Leicester campus of Becker College.