Elizabeth Blodgett Hall, who as the founder of Simon’s Rock College helped spur the “early college” movement, died July 15 in New Canaan, Conn. She was 95.
Ms. Hall, who served as the headmistress of the Concord Academy, then a private girls’ school in Concord, Mass., started Simon’s Rock in 1964 to serve promising students who were bored with high school. She reportedly named it after a rock on which she had played as a child.
The school in Great Barrington, Mass.—the nation’s only four-year liberal arts college designed to serve students of high school age—became part of Bard College in 1979. Students typically enroll after the 10th or 11th grade and can earn associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.
In an initiative that echoes Ms. Hall’s concept, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is underwriting dozens of early-college high schools on college campuses nationwide that allow students to earn college credit along with their high school diplomas.
