Berea College
Encyclopedia
Berea College is a liberal arts
work college
in Berea, Kentucky
(south of Lexington
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
in the Southern United States
to be coeducation
al and racially integrated
. Berea College charges no tuition
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
, but students come from all states in the United States
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
ist John Gregg Fee
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
in the South
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
A high percentage of Berea graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, and the college is also active in international programs, with about half of Berea students studying abroad before graduation. The college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.
As a work college
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
and one of only two in Kentucky
(Alice Lloyd College
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
, woodworking
, weaving
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Protestant Christian
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
. The college's motto, "God
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
(1963–1970).
Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.
Berea College is a liberal arts
work college
in Berea, Kentucky
(south of Lexington
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
in the Southern United States
to be coeducation
al and racially integrated
. Berea College charges no tuition
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
, but students come from all states in the United States
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
ist John Gregg Fee
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
in the South
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
A high percentage of Berea graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, and the college is also active in international programs, with about half of Berea students studying abroad before graduation. The college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
and one of only two in Kentucky
(Alice Lloyd College
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
, woodworking
, weaving
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Protestant Christian
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
. The college's motto, "God
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
(1963–1970).
Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Berea College is a liberal arts
work college
in Berea, Kentucky
(south of Lexington
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
in the Southern United States
to be coeducation
al and racially integrated
. Berea College charges no tuition
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
, but students come from all states in the United States
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
ist John Gregg Fee
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
in the South
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
A high percentage of Berea graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, and the college is also active in international programs, with about half of Berea students studying abroad before graduation. The college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
and one of only two in Kentucky
(Alice Lloyd College
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
, woodworking
, weaving
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Protestant Christian
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
. The college's motto, "God
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
(1963–1970).
Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Berea College is a liberal arts
work college
in Berea, Kentucky
(south of Lexington
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
in the Southern United States
to be coeducation
al and racially integrated
. Berea College charges no tuition
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
, but students come from all states in the United States
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
ist John Gregg Fee
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
in the South
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
A high percentage of Berea graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, and the college is also active in international programs, with about half of Berea students studying abroad before graduation. The college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
and one of only two in Kentucky
(Alice Lloyd College
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
, woodworking
, weaving
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Protestant Christian
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
. The college's motto, "God
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
(1963–1970).
Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Berea College is a liberal arts
work college
in Berea, Kentucky
(south of Lexington
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
in the Southern United States
to be coeducation
al and racially integrated
. Berea College charges no tuition
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
, but students come from all states in the United States
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
ist John Gregg Fee
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
in the South
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
A high percentage of Berea graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, and the college is also active in international programs, with about half of Berea students studying abroad before graduation. The college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
and one of only two in Kentucky
(Alice Lloyd College
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
, woodworking
, weaving
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Protestant Christian
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
. The college's motto, "God
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
(1963–1970).
Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
(south of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al and racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Berea College charges no tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, but students come from all states in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
History
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
ist John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky , was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was...
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
Rankings
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
Academics and student life
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
- A .25 credit course is the equivalent of 1 semester hour.
- A .50 credit course is the equivalent of 2 semester hours.
- A .75 credit course is equivalent to 3 semester hours.
- A 1.00 credit course is the equivalent to 4 semester hours.
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
Scholarships and work program
Berea College provides all students with full-tuition scholarships (valued at $25,500 per year), and many receive support for room and board as well. Admission to the College is granted only to students who need financial assistance (as determined by the FAFSA); in general, applications are accepted only from those whose family income falls within the bottom 40% of U.S. households. About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year (with the exception of countries in distress such as LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.
As a work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and June Buchanan, a native of New York City, in 1923, at first under the name of Caney Junior College, as an...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
Boone Tavern
Boone Tavern is a restaurant, hotel, and guesthouse affiliated with Berea College in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky.-History:Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to house guests of the college. It is named for early Kentucky explorer Daniel Boone...
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
, weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
Campus life
TechnologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
The Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics...
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Christian identity
Berea was founded by progressive, non-sectarianSect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
. The college's motto, "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
Library collections
The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachian region. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs. Included are the papers of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in...
(1963–1970).
Sustainability
Berea's Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC) is developing a set of indicators by which to measure the progress of the college toward ecological sustainability, creates bi-annual reports on that progress, and links the school's efforts to green campus operations with its mission to raise consciousness of environmental issues among faculty, students, and staff.Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.
Presidents of Berea College
| Presidents of Berea College | Years as President | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward Henry Fairchild | (1869–89) |
| 2 | William B. Stewart | (1890–92) |
| 3 | William Goodell Frost | (1892–1920) |
| 4 | William J. Hutchins | (1920–39) |
| 5 | Francis S. Hutchins | (1939–67) |
| 6 | Willis D. Weatherford | (1967–84) |
| 7 | John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.-Early life and education:... |
(1984–94) |
| 8 | Larry Shinn Larry Shinn Larry Shinn is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.... |
(1994–2012) |
| 9 | Lyle D. Roelofs | (2012–Future) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" CarneyJohn "Bam" CarneyJohn Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney (born September 30) is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen...
- educator; member of the Kentucky House of RepresentativesKentucky House of RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form a House district, except when necessary to preserve...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville, KentuckyCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University... - William H. DanforthWilliam H. DanforthWilliam H. Danforth founded Nestle Purina in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He was a co-founder of the American Youth Foundation and the author of the book, I Dare You!....
- creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you! - John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds.... - Rodney GriffinRodney GriffinRodney Griffin is a Southern Gospel singer and songwriter currently performing with Greater Vision. Griffin was named favorite songwriter in the Singing News Fan Awards every year from 1998 to 2011. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
with Southern gospelSouthern GospelSouthern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater VisionGreater VisionGreater Vision is a Southern Gospel trio founded in 1990 by Gerald Wolfe, Mark Trammell, and Chris Allman, and often accompanied by pianist Stan Whitmire . Over the last several years, this trio has consistently been named Southern Gospel's favorite trio of the year in the Singing News Fan Awards... - Sam Hurst - inventor of the first touch screen.
Berea College is a liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
(south of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al and racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Berea College charges no tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, but students come from all states in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
History
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
ist John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky , was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was...
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
Rankings
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
Academics and student life
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
- A .25 credit course is the equivalent of 1 semester hour.
- A .50 credit course is the equivalent of 2 semester hours.
- A .75 credit course is equivalent to 3 semester hours.
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
Scholarships and work program
Berea College provides all students with full-tuition scholarships (valued at $25,500 per year), and many receive support for room and board as well. Admission to the College is granted only to students who need financial assistance (as determined by the FAFSA); in general, applications are accepted only from those whose family income falls within the bottom 40% of U.S. households. About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year (with the exception of countries in distress such as LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and June Buchanan, a native of New York City, in 1923, at first under the name of Caney Junior College, as an...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
Boone Tavern
Boone Tavern is a restaurant, hotel, and guesthouse affiliated with Berea College in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky.-History:Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to house guests of the college. It is named for early Kentucky explorer Daniel Boone...
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
, weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
Campus life
TechnologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
The Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics...
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Christian identity
Berea was founded by progressive, non-sectarianSect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
. The college's motto, "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
Library collections
The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachian region. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs. Included are the papers of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in...
(1963–1970).
Sustainability
Berea's Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC) is developing a set of indicators by which to measure the progress of the college toward ecological sustainability, creates bi-annual reports on that progress, and links the school's efforts to green campus operations with its mission to raise consciousness of environmental issues among faculty, students, and staff.Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Presidents of Berea College
| Presidents of Berea College | Years as President | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward Henry Fairchild | (1869–89) |
| 2 | William B. Stewart | (1890–92) |
| 3 | William Goodell Frost | (1892–1920) |
| 4 | William J. Hutchins | (1920–39) |
| 5 | Francis S. Hutchins | (1939–67) |
| 6 | Willis D. Weatherford | (1967–84) |
| 7 | John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.-Early life and education:... |
(1984–94) |
| 8 | Larry Shinn Larry Shinn Larry Shinn is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.... |
(1994–2012) |
| 9 | Lyle D. Roelofs | (2012–Future) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" CarneyJohn "Bam" CarneyJohn Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney (born September 30) is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen...
- educator; member of the Kentucky House of RepresentativesKentucky House of RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form a House district, except when necessary to preserve...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville, KentuckyCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University... - William H. DanforthWilliam H. DanforthWilliam H. Danforth founded Nestle Purina in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He was a co-founder of the American Youth Foundation and the author of the book, I Dare You!....
- creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you! - John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
John B. Fenn - Autobiography - Rodney GriffinRodney GriffinRodney Griffin is a Southern Gospel singer and songwriter currently performing with Greater Vision. Griffin was named favorite songwriter in the Singing News Fan Awards every year from 1998 to 2011. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
with Southern gospelSouthern GospelSouthern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater VisionGreater VisionGreater Vision is a Southern Gospel trio founded in 1990 by Gerald Wolfe, Mark Trammell, and Chris Allman, and often accompanied by pianist Stan Whitmire . Over the last several years, this trio has consistently been named Southern Gospel's favorite trio of the year in the Singing News Fan Awards... - Sam Hurst - inventor of the first touch screen.
Berea College is a liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
(south of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al and racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Berea College charges no tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, but students come from all states in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
History
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
ist John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky , was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was...
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
Rankings
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
Academics and student life
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
- A .25 credit course is the equivalent of 1 semester hour.
- A .50 credit course is the equivalent of 2 semester hours.
- A .75 credit course is equivalent to 3 semester hours.
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
Scholarships and work program
Berea College provides all students with full-tuition scholarships (valued at $25,500 per year), and many receive support for room and board as well. Admission to the College is granted only to students who need financial assistance (as determined by the FAFSA); in general, applications are accepted only from those whose family income falls within the bottom 40% of U.S. households. About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year (with the exception of countries in distress such as LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and June Buchanan, a native of New York City, in 1923, at first under the name of Caney Junior College, as an...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
Boone Tavern
Boone Tavern is a restaurant, hotel, and guesthouse affiliated with Berea College in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky.-History:Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to house guests of the college. It is named for early Kentucky explorer Daniel Boone...
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
, weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
Campus life
TechnologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
The Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics...
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Christian identity
Berea was founded by progressive, non-sectarianSect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
. The college's motto, "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
Library collections
The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachian region. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs. Included are the papers of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in...
(1963–1970).
Sustainability
Berea's Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC) is developing a set of indicators by which to measure the progress of the college toward ecological sustainability, creates bi-annual reports on that progress, and links the school's efforts to green campus operations with its mission to raise consciousness of environmental issues among faculty, students, and staff.Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Presidents of Berea College
| Presidents of Berea College | Years as President | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward Henry Fairchild | (1869–89) |
| 2 | William B. Stewart | (1890–92) |
| 3 | William Goodell Frost | (1892–1920) |
| 4 | William J. Hutchins | (1920–39) |
| 5 | Francis S. Hutchins | (1939–67) |
| 6 | Willis D. Weatherford | (1967–84) |
| 7 | John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.-Early life and education:... |
(1984–94) |
| 8 | Larry Shinn Larry Shinn Larry Shinn is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.... |
(1994–2012) |
| 9 | Lyle D. Roelofs | (2012–Future) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" CarneyJohn "Bam" CarneyJohn Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney (born September 30) is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen...
- educator; member of the Kentucky House of RepresentativesKentucky House of RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form a House district, except when necessary to preserve...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville, KentuckyCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University... - William H. DanforthWilliam H. DanforthWilliam H. Danforth founded Nestle Purina in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He was a co-founder of the American Youth Foundation and the author of the book, I Dare You!....
- creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you! - John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
John B. Fenn - Autobiography - Rodney GriffinRodney GriffinRodney Griffin is a Southern Gospel singer and songwriter currently performing with Greater Vision. Griffin was named favorite songwriter in the Singing News Fan Awards every year from 1998 to 2011. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
with Southern gospelSouthern GospelSouthern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater VisionGreater VisionGreater Vision is a Southern Gospel trio founded in 1990 by Gerald Wolfe, Mark Trammell, and Chris Allman, and often accompanied by pianist Stan Whitmire . Over the last several years, this trio has consistently been named Southern Gospel's favorite trio of the year in the Singing News Fan Awards... - Sam Hurst - inventor of the first touch screen.http://www.physics.berea.edu/alumni.phpSam Hurst- Berea College Physics Alumni
Berea College is a liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
(south of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al and racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Berea College charges no tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, but students come from all states in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
History
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
ist John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky , was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was...
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
Rankings
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
Academics and student life
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
- A .25 credit course is the equivalent of 1 semester hour.
- A .50 credit course is the equivalent of 2 semester hours.
- A .75 credit course is equivalent to 3 semester hours.
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
Scholarships and work program
Berea College provides all students with full-tuition scholarships (valued at $25,500 per year), and many receive support for room and board as well. Admission to the College is granted only to students who need financial assistance (as determined by the FAFSA); in general, applications are accepted only from those whose family income falls within the bottom 40% of U.S. households. About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year (with the exception of countries in distress such as LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and June Buchanan, a native of New York City, in 1923, at first under the name of Caney Junior College, as an...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
Boone Tavern
Boone Tavern is a restaurant, hotel, and guesthouse affiliated with Berea College in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky.-History:Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to house guests of the college. It is named for early Kentucky explorer Daniel Boone...
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
, weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
Campus life
TechnologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
The Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics...
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Christian identity
Berea was founded by progressive, non-sectarianSect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
. The college's motto, "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
Library collections
The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachian region. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs. Included are the papers of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in...
(1963–1970).
Sustainability
Berea's Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC) is developing a set of indicators by which to measure the progress of the college toward ecological sustainability, creates bi-annual reports on that progress, and links the school's efforts to green campus operations with its mission to raise consciousness of environmental issues among faculty, students, and staff.Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Presidents of Berea College
| Presidents of Berea College | Years as President | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward Henry Fairchild | (1869–89) |
| 2 | William B. Stewart | (1890–92) |
| 3 | William Goodell Frost | (1892–1920) |
| 4 | William J. Hutchins | (1920–39) |
| 5 | Francis S. Hutchins | (1939–67) |
| 6 | Willis D. Weatherford | (1967–84) |
| 7 | John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.-Early life and education:... |
(1984–94) |
| 8 | Larry Shinn Larry Shinn Larry Shinn is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.... |
(1994–2012) |
| 9 | Lyle D. Roelofs | (2012–Future) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" CarneyJohn "Bam" CarneyJohn Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney (born September 30) is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen...
- educator; member of the Kentucky House of RepresentativesKentucky House of RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form a House district, except when necessary to preserve...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville, KentuckyCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University... - William H. DanforthWilliam H. DanforthWilliam H. Danforth founded Nestle Purina in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He was a co-founder of the American Youth Foundation and the author of the book, I Dare You!....
- creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you! - John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
John B. Fenn - Autobiography - Rodney GriffinRodney GriffinRodney Griffin is a Southern Gospel singer and songwriter currently performing with Greater Vision. Griffin was named favorite songwriter in the Singing News Fan Awards every year from 1998 to 2011. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
with Southern gospelSouthern GospelSouthern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater VisionGreater VisionGreater Vision is a Southern Gospel trio founded in 1990 by Gerald Wolfe, Mark Trammell, and Chris Allman, and often accompanied by pianist Stan Whitmire . Over the last several years, this trio has consistently been named Southern Gospel's favorite trio of the year in the Singing News Fan Awards... - Sam Hurst - inventor of the first touch screen.http://www.physics.berea.edu/alumni.phpSam Hurst- Berea College Physics Alumni
Berea College is a liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
(south of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students from low-income families and for having been the first college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al and racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Berea College charges no tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, but students come from all states in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
History
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
ist John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
(1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, school and church.
In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 whites. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for advanced study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
state legislature's passage of the "Day Law" disrupted Berea's interracial education by prohibiting education of black and white students together. The college challenged the law in state court and further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky
Berea College v. Kentucky , was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was...
. When the challenge failed, the college had to become a segregated school
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
to educate black students. In 1925 famed advertisor Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every single letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Up until the 1960s, Berea provided pre-college education in addition to college level curriculum. In 1968, the elementary and secondary schools (Foundation School) were discontinued in favor of focusing on undergraduate college education.
Rankings
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as the number one comprehensive college in the South, and it is currently ranked as #1 among liberal arts
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
colleges by The Washington Monthly College Ranking 2011.
Academics and student life
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation. Like many private colleges, Berea does not enroll students based upon semester hours. Berea College uses a course credit system, which has the following equivalencies:
- A .25 credit course is the equivalent of 1 semester hour.
- A .50 credit course is the equivalent of 2 semester hours.
- A .75 credit course is equivalent to 3 semester hours.
All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis, which is 3.00 course credits of enrollment, or 12 semester hours. Students must be enrolled in at least 4.00 course credits to be considered for the Dean's list. Enrollment in 4.75 or more course credits requires the approval of the Academic Adviser, and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Part-time enrollment is not permitted except during Summer term. A cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required in all majors in order to graduate with a Bachelor's degree.
Scholarships and work program
Berea College provides all students with full-tuition scholarships (valued at $25,500 per year), and many receive support for room and board as well. Admission to the College is granted only to students who need financial assistance (as determined by the FAFSA); in general, applications are accepted only from those whose family income falls within the bottom 40% of U.S. households. About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year (with the exception of countries in distress such as LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
). This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.
In order to support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment stands at $950 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.1 billion. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations that support the mission of the college and donations from alumni. A solid investment strategy increased the endowment from $150 million in 1985 to its current amount.Brull, Steven. (September 2005). "Appalachian spring". Institutional Investor, p. 35.
As a work college
Work college
A work college is a type of institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process, as opposed to being an appended requirement...
, Berea has a student work program in which all students work 10 or more hours per week on campus. Berea is one of eight colleges in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and June Buchanan, a native of New York City, in 1923, at first under the name of Caney Junior College, as an...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from bussing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel
Boone Tavern
Boone Tavern is a restaurant, hotel, and guesthouse affiliated with Berea College in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky.-History:Boone Tavern was built in 1909 to house guests of the college. It is named for early Kentucky explorer Daniel Boone...
, a historic business owned by the college, to managing the hanging and focusing of lights for the productions at the Theatre Lab. Other job duties include janitorial labor, building management, resident assistance, teaching assistance, food service, gardening and groundskeeping, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
, weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Berea College has helped make the town a center for quality arts and crafts.
Students are currently paid an hourly wage at or above $3.80 per hour by the college. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Students are not allowed to work off campus. Students are also not allowed to have cars on campus without a special permit, and student permits for cars are rarely granted to first- or second-year students. The college generally uses a shuttle bus system to provide students with supplemental transport.
Campus life
TechnologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
is an important part of life at Berea College. Since 2002, all students at Berea receive laptops that they take with them when they graduate. Students are not required to pay for the computers, though they do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the NAIA
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
's Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
The Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics...
.
Berea has not had a football team since 1904.
Christian identity
Berea was founded by progressive, non-sectarianSect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
. The college's motto, "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. One General Studies course is focused on Christian faith, as every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are designed to be taught with respect for the unique spiritual journey of each individual, regardless of religious identification.
Library collections
The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachian region. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs. Included are the papers of the Council of the Southern MountainsCouncil of the Southern Mountains
Council of the Southern Mountains was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.-Origins:...
(1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers
Appalachian Volunteers, Inc. was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went “from self-help to sedition” as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," in...
(1963–1970).
Sustainability
Berea's Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC) is developing a set of indicators by which to measure the progress of the college toward ecological sustainability, creates bi-annual reports on that progress, and links the school's efforts to green campus operations with its mission to raise consciousness of environmental issues among faculty, students, and staff.Berea addresses environmental sustainability from both an operational and an intellectual perspective; the school emphasizes an experiential education for its students, combining hands-on work with academic exploration. Berea's Ecovillage is a living/learning community comprising 50 apartments. The community houses students and student families, and it includes a child development lab, an environmental studies demonstration house, wetlands, a permaculture food forest, individual gardens, and the "ecological machine," which is a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage to reuse quality.
Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/schools/berea-college Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2009/executive-summary/key-findingshttp://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111912161011773533858.0004554ac1e94eeae6282&ll=38.030786,-81.518555&spn=16.347063,28.300781&t=p&z=5
Presidents of Berea College
| Presidents of Berea College | Years as President | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward Henry Fairchild | (1869–89) |
| 2 | William B. Stewart | (1890–92) |
| 3 | William Goodell Frost | (1892–1920) |
| 4 | William J. Hutchins | (1920–39) |
| 5 | Francis S. Hutchins | (1939–67) |
| 6 | Willis D. Weatherford | (1967–84) |
| 7 | John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.-Early life and education:... |
(1984–94) |
| 8 | Larry Shinn Larry Shinn Larry Shinn is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.... |
(1994–2012) |
| 9 | Lyle D. Roelofs | (2012–Future) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" CarneyJohn "Bam" CarneyJohn Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen Carney, known as Bam Carney (born September 30) is the Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 51 John Mitchel Owen...
- educator; member of the Kentucky House of RepresentativesKentucky House of RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form a House district, except when necessary to preserve...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville, KentuckyCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University... - William H. DanforthWilliam H. DanforthWilliam H. Danforth founded Nestle Purina in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He was a co-founder of the American Youth Foundation and the author of the book, I Dare You!....
- creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you! - John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
John B. Fenn - Autobiography - Rodney GriffinRodney GriffinRodney Griffin is a Southern Gospel singer and songwriter currently performing with Greater Vision. Griffin was named favorite songwriter in the Singing News Fan Awards every year from 1998 to 2011. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
with Southern gospelSouthern GospelSouthern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater VisionGreater VisionGreater Vision is a Southern Gospel trio founded in 1990 by Gerald Wolfe, Mark Trammell, and Chris Allman, and often accompanied by pianist Stan Whitmire . Over the last several years, this trio has consistently been named Southern Gospel's favorite trio of the year in the Singing News Fan Awards... - Sam Hurst - inventor of the first touch screen.Sam Hurst- Berea College Physics Alumni
- Keven McQueen, author of several books chronicling violent crime in pre-20th century Kentucky
- C.E. MorganC.E. MorganC. E. Morgan is an American author born in 1976. The author of the novel All the Living , she was a recipient of the National Book Foundations 5 under 35 award and a 2010 Lannan Literary Fellowship...
- author of "All the Living" The National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” Fiction Selections for 2009, National Book FoundationNational Book FoundationThe National Book Foundation, founded in 1989, is an American nonprofit literary organization established "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." It achieves this through sponsoring the National Book Award, as well as the medal for Distinguished Contribution to American...
, accessed July 27, 2010 - Harold "Hal" Moses, M.D. - Director Emeritus, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; Professor of Cancer Biology
- Tharon MusserTharon MusserTharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....
- Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning lighting designer known especially for her work on A Chorus LineA Chorus LineA Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.... - Jeffrey ReddickJeffrey ReddickJeffrey Reddick is an American screenwriter best known for creating The Final Destination series. He also wrote the horror film Tamara and the remake of Day of the Dead. Raised in Jackson, Kentucky, he graduated Breathitt County High School in 1987 and attended Berea College...
- American screenwriter, best-known for creating the Final DestinationFinal DestinationFinal Destination is a 2000 supernatural slasher film written and directed by James Wong. The film was co-written by Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick, both of them having previously worked with Wong in the TV series The X-Files. The film stars Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith and Tony Todd...
series.Jeffrey Reddick Bio - Jack RoushJack RoushJack Roush is the founder, CEO, and co-owner along with John Henry of Roush Fenway Racing, a NASCAR team headquartered in Concord, North Carolina, and is Chairman of the Board of Roush Enterprises....
- founder, CEO, and owner of Roush Fenway Racing, a NASCARNASCARThe National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
team - Helen Maynor ScheirbeckHelen Maynor ScheirbeckHelen Maynor Scheirbeck was a Native American educator and activist. Born in Lumberton, North Carolina, she was Assistant Director for Public Programs at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian...
- Assistant Director for Public Programs at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American IndianNational Museum of the American IndianThe National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere... - Miss B HollywoodMiss B HollywoodMiss B Hollywood is a self-styled singing and songwriting Hip Hop artist from Memphis, Tennessee. Born in Jackson, Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, the artist attended Bishop Byrne High School and Southaven High School in Memphis. Miss B Hollywood excelled in her studies and upon...
- National Pop Rap Recording Artist - James ThindwaJames ThindwaJames Thindwa is a community organizer in the Chicago, Illinois area. He heads Chicago Jobs with Justice where he organizes for workers rights.He was born to Malawian parents in Zimbabwe...
- community activist with Chicago's "Jobs with Justice"- Rocky S. Tuan - Director of Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering at the University of PittsburghUniversity of PittsburghThe University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
. - Naomi Tutu (Nontombi Naomi Tutu) - daughter of Archbishop Desmond TutuDesmond TutuDesmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
and activist - Paul S. Peercy - Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
- Djuan Trent - Miss KentuckyMiss KentuckyThe Miss Kentucky competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Kentucky in the Miss America pageant. Kentucky has once won the Miss America crown.- Winners :...
2010 - Muse WatsonMuse WatsonMuse Watson is an American stage and screen actor. He most recently appeared as the recurring character Mike Franks in the television drama NCIS.-Biography:Watson was born on July 20, 1948 in Alexandria, Louisiana...
- American actor - Billy Edd WheelerBilly Edd WheelerBilly Edward "Edd" Wheeler is an American songwriter, performer, writer and visual artist. He has written songs performed by over 90 different artists including Judy Collins, Jefferson Airplane, Bobby Darin, The Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Kenny Rogers, Hazel Dickens, and Elvis Presley...
- songwriter, performer and writer - Carter G. WoodsonCarter G. WoodsonCarter Godwin Woodson was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Woodson was one of the first scholars to study African American history. A founder of Journal of Negro History , Dr...
- African-American historian, author, and journalist. Co-founder of Black History MonthBlack History MonthBlack History Month is an observance of the history of the African diaspora in a number of countries outside of Africa. Since 1976, it is observed annually in the United States and Canada in February, while in the United Kingdom it is observed in October...
External links
- Rocky S. Tuan - Director of Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh