Berea College

Berea College is a liberal arts work college in the city of Berea and is located in Madison County, approximately 35 miles south of Lexington, in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing free education to students and for having been the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated.^[3] Berea College charges no tuition; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $97,200; $24,300 per year).^[3]

Berea offers Bachelor's degrees in 32 majors.^[3] It 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 46 states in the United States and 58 other countries, with approximately one in three students an ethnic minority or international.^[3]

History

Founded in 1855 by the abolitionist 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 on land that was granted to Fee by politician and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay. Fee named the new community after the biblical Berea. 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, Ohio, 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.

An ad for Berea College from 1900, placed in a black newspaper in Minnesota.

In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, of whom 96 were black and 91 white. 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 degrees were awarded in 1873. Almost all the private and state colleges in the South were racially segregated. Berea was the main exception until a new state law in 1904 forced its segregation. ^[4] 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.^[5] In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.

In 1925 famed advertiser 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. 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.^[6]

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.^[5]

Rankings

The 2014 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes Berea as 'more selective' and rates it the 76th best liberal arts college in the nation and 11th for "Best Undergraduate Teaching."^[7] Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Berea 63rd in its 2014 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.^[8] Washington Monthly, which rates schools based on their contribution to the public good in terms of Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country), rated Berea 3rd among liberal arts colleges in the United States in 2013.^[9] Despite the overall drop in application and percentage yield across the nation, some schools including Berea continue to see an increase in the percentage of accepted students that choose to enroll, in both the National universities and Top Liberal Arts ranking, Berea outranked all top schools except Harvard and Stanford.^[7] Berea College is among the few colleges and universities in the world committed to making education affordable to each admitted student regardless of their financial circumstances. A college or university that promises to make sure every penny of an accepted student's demonstrated financial need is covered through grants, work-study, scholarships, and in some cases, federal student loans, Berea is considered a 100% meet-need school.^[7] In 2014 Berea College students received more Gilman Scholarships (Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program) than those of any other private school in the United States.

Admissions profile

For the Class of 2017 (enrolled Fall 2013), Berea received 1,620 applications and accepted 551 (34.0%).^[10] The number enrolling was 397; the yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who enroll) was 72.1%,^[10] ranking behind only Harvard and Stanford in the 2014 CommonDataSet. In terms of class rank, 24.8% of enrolled freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school classes while 72.5% ranked in the top quarter.^[10] Of the 80.1% of enrolled freshmen submitting ACT scores, the mean Composite score was 24.3; the middle 50% range was 22.0–26.0.^[10] Of the 14.6% of enrolled freshmen submitting SAT scores, the mean scores were 560 for critical reading, 565 for math, and 544 for writing, while the middle 50% range of SAT scores was 510–630 for critical reading, 513–610 for math, and 483–610 for writing.^[10] The incoming Class of 2017 was 54.8% female, 45.2% male.^[10]

Academics and student life

Draper Building

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.^[11] Berea students are also eligible to win the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides funding for a year of study abroad following graduation.^[12] 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.^[13]

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 3.30.There are also optional Summer opportunities to engage in study. Students may take between 1 and 2.25 credits during Summer. One Berea course credit is equivalent to four semester hours (6 quarter hours). 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 and many receive support for room and board as well. Berea College charges no tuition; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $100,000; $25,000 per year). 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 Liberia). 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.^[14]

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 was $1.012 billion as of June 30, 2013.^[2] 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.^[15]

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 only eight colleges in the United States and one of 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 writing and publishing the students' newspaper Pinnacle, or 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.^[16]

Students are currently paid an hourly wage from $4.10 to $6.55 by the college, based on the WLS ("Work, Learning, and Service") level attached to individual labor positions.^[17] 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. Because of the scheduling demands of both an academic requirement and a labor requirement, students are not allowed to work at off-campus jobs.

Campus life

Technology 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.

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 provides students with supplemental transport through a shuttle bus system.

Athletics

Berea College teams are nicknamed as the Mountaineers. The college is currently a transitioning member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), competing as a Division III Independent school. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, swimming, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track & field and volleyball.

On February 20, 2012, the NCAA announced it had granted Berea permission to begin a one-year period exploring membership in its Division III, non-scholarship athletic program.^[18]

On May 4, 2016, the USA South Athletic Conference announced that Berea would join the league effective in the 2017–18 school year.^[19]

Christian identity

Berea was founded by Protestant Christians. 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 an effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of students 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 Mountains (1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers (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.^[20]

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.^[21] 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.^[22]

Berea's sustainability initiatives earned it a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.^[23] Berea's grade placed it in the top 23% of schools nationwide, surpassed by only three schools in the Southeast.^[24][25] In 2014, Berea College was named as Kentucky's second Fair Trade University by Fair Trade USA. The Fair Trade University status is awarded to schools that meet five criteria: building a Fair Trade Advisory Council, including Fair Trade in applicable curriculum, offering Fair Trade products at campus outlets, using Fair Trade products on campus, and passing a university-wide resolution to support a commitment to Fair Trade.

Presidents of Berea College

Notable alumni and professors

• John "Bam" Carney – educator; member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from Campbellsville
• William H. Danforth – creator of Purina Dog Chow, author of I Dare you!
• John B. Fenn – winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in chemistry ^[26]
• Rodney Griffin – award-winning songwriter and baritone with Southern gospel group Greater Vision
• Finley Hamilton – United States Representative from Kentucky.
• Julia Britton Hooks – second African-American woman in the United States to graduate from college and paternal grandmother of Benjamin Hooks
• Juanita M. Kreps – U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Jimmy Carter
• C.E. Morgan – author of "All the Living" ^[27]
• Tharon Musser – Tony Award-winning lighting designer known especially for her work on A Chorus Line
• Jeffrey Reddick – American screenwriter, best known for creating the Final Destination series.^[28]
• Jack Roush – founder, CEO, and owner of Roush Fenway Racing, a NASCAR team
• Helen Maynor Scheirbeck – Assistant Director for Public Programs at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian
• Miss B Hollywood – National Pop Rap Recording Artist
• James Thindwa – community activist with Chicago's "Jobs with Justice" ^[29]
• Djuan Trent – Miss Kentucky 2010
• Muse Watson – American actor
• Billy Edd Wheeler – songwriter, performer and writer
• Carter G. Woodson – African-American historian, author, and journalist. Often considered the father of African-American history. Co-founder of Black History Month
• Silas House – NEH Chair in Appalachian Studies, author and activist.
• bell hooks – Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, author of over thirty books.
• Dean W. Colvard – Former president of Mississippi State University, notable for his role in a 1963 controversy surrounding the participation of the university's basketball team in the NCAA Tournament.

See also

• Gott v. Berea College

References

Bibliography

• Adams, John D., "The Berea College Mission to the Mountains: Teacher Training, The Normal Department, and Rural Community Development," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (2012) 110#1 pp 33–66.
• Peck, Elizabeth. Berea's First Century, 1855–1955. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1955.
• Wilson, Shannon H. Berea College: An Illustrated History. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8131-2379-0

External links

• Official website
• Official athletic website

Coordinates: 37°34′21″N 84°17′31″W / 37.57244°N 84.29188°W / 37.57244; -84.29188