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Sarah Gibson Blanding, 86, was the first woman president of Vassar College.
Miss Blanding died Sunday in Pennswood Village, a retirement community in Newtown, Pa., where she had lived since 1980, said a school spokeswoman, Dixie Sheridan.
Miss Blanding was the sixth president of Vassar, from 1946 to 1964, during the years when it was exclusively a woman`s school.
During her administration the school`s investment portfolio tripled. She introduced a curriculum emphasizing independent work and pioneered basic research into students` psychological changes during college years.
Miss Blanding was born Nov. 22, 1898, in Lexington, Ky.
