Berea College is a
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
work collegeA 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, KentuckyBerea is a city in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 9,851 at the 2000 census, a 2008 estimate put the population at 14,431. It is the fastest growing town in Kentucky and one of the fastest growing in the nation, having increased by 43.4% since 2000...
(south of
LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 65th largest in the United States. 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al and
racially integratedRacial 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; 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
AppalachiaAppalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from western 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 StatesThe 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 was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
ist
John Gregg FeeJohn 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
curriculumIn 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region 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-1800s. 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-
slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. 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 receive compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at
Camp NelsonThe Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park is a historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky...
. 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 degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
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. KentuckyBerea 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 schoolRacial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and 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 estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
to educate black students. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
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. .
Academics and student life
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused 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 68th among
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
colleges , making it a Tier one school. 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 FellowshipThe 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 2.5 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 , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people and covers ....
). 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 $800 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.2 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 collegeA 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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(
Alice Lloyd CollegeAlice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-born journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and New York native June Buchanan in 1923, initially under the name Caney Junior College, as an institution which...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the
Boone Tavern HotelBoone 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 technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
,
woodworkingWoodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many...
,
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
. 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
Technology is an important part of life at Berea College. To help students bridge the "digital divide," in 2000 Berea launched its laptop initiative as the top objective of its Sesquicentennial fundraising campaign. 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. There are about 5,800 data ports on campus, and the College is working to establish a campus-wide wireless network, with twenty-four on-campus wireless hotspots currently.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the
NAIAThe 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 permits membership to colleges and universities...
's
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic ConferenceThe 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-sectarianThe historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox....
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
s, It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular
denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
. The college's motto, "
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. Many General Studies courses are focused on Christian faith, and every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course in his/her Sophomore or Junior year. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are 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 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 VolunteersAppalachian 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 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 is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Previous to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University, USA. Prof...
|
(1994–Present) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" Carney
John 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 RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The House is composed of 100 representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville 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. Campbellsville is twinned with Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland.-History:The city...
- John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
- Rodney Griffin
Rodney 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 2009. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritone is a type of classical male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above...
with Southern gospelSouthern Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater 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 artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
work collegeA 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, KentuckyBerea is a city in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 9,851 at the 2000 census, a 2008 estimate put the population at 14,431. It is the fastest growing town in Kentucky and one of the fastest growing in the nation, having increased by 43.4% since 2000...
(south of
LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 65th largest in the United States. 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al and
racially integratedRacial 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; 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
AppalachiaAppalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from western 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 StatesThe 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 was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
ist
John Gregg FeeJohn 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
curriculumIn 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region 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-1800s. 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-
slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. 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 receive compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at
Camp NelsonThe Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park is a historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky...
. 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 degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
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. KentuckyBerea 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 schoolRacial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and 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 estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
to educate black students. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
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.
.
Academics and student life
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused 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 68th among
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
colleges
[http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/1955], making it a Tier one school. 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 FellowshipThe 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 2.5 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 , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people and covers ....
). 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 $800 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.2 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 collegeA 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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(
Alice Lloyd CollegeAlice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-born journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and New York native June Buchanan in 1923, initially under the name Caney Junior College, as an institution which...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the
Boone Tavern HotelBoone 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 technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
,
woodworkingWoodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many...
,
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
. 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
Technology is an important part of life at Berea College. To help students bridge the "digital divide," in 2000 Berea launched its laptop initiative as the top objective of its Sesquicentennial fundraising campaign. 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. There are about 5,800 data ports on campus, and the College is working to establish a campus-wide wireless network, with twenty-four on-campus wireless hotspots currently.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the
NAIAThe 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 permits membership to colleges and universities...
's
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic ConferenceThe 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-sectarianThe historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox....
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
s, It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular
denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
. The college's motto, "
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. Many General Studies courses are focused on Christian faith, and every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course in his/her Sophomore or Junior year. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are 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 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 VolunteersAppalachian 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-findings][http://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 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 is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Previous to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University, USA. Prof...
|
(1994–Present) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" Carney
John 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 RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The House is composed of 100 representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville 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. Campbellsville is twinned with Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland.-History:The city...
- John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
[John B. Fenn - Autobiography]
- Rodney Griffin
Rodney 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 2009. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritone is a type of classical male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above...
with Southern gospelSouthern Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater 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 artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
work collegeA 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, KentuckyBerea is a city in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 9,851 at the 2000 census, a 2008 estimate put the population at 14,431. It is the fastest growing town in Kentucky and one of the fastest growing in the nation, having increased by 43.4% since 2000...
(south of
LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 65th largest in the United States. 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al and
racially integratedRacial 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; 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
AppalachiaAppalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from western 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 StatesThe 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 was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
ist
John Gregg FeeJohn 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
curriculumIn 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region 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-1800s. 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-
slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. 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 receive compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at
Camp NelsonThe Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park is a historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky...
. 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 degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
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. KentuckyBerea 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 schoolRacial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and 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 estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
to educate black students. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
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.
.
Academics and student life
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused 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 68th among
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
colleges
[http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/1955], making it a Tier one school. 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 FellowshipThe 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 2.5 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 , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people and covers ....
). 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 $800 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.2 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 collegeA 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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(
Alice Lloyd CollegeAlice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-born journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and New York native June Buchanan in 1923, initially under the name Caney Junior College, as an institution which...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the
Boone Tavern HotelBoone 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 technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
,
woodworkingWoodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many...
,
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
. 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
Technology is an important part of life at Berea College. To help students bridge the "digital divide," in 2000 Berea launched its laptop initiative as the top objective of its Sesquicentennial fundraising campaign. 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. There are about 5,800 data ports on campus, and the College is working to establish a campus-wide wireless network, with twenty-four on-campus wireless hotspots currently.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the
NAIAThe 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 permits membership to colleges and universities...
's
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic ConferenceThe 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-sectarianThe historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox....
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
s, It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular
denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
. The college's motto, "
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. Many General Studies courses are focused on Christian faith, and every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course in his/her Sophomore or Junior year. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are 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 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 VolunteersAppalachian 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-findings][http://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 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 is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Previous to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University, USA. Prof...
|
(1994–Present) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" Carney
John 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 RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The House is composed of 100 representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville 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. Campbellsville is twinned with Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland.-History:The city...
- John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
[John B. Fenn - Autobiography]
- Rodney Griffin
Rodney 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 2009. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritone is a type of classical male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above...
with Southern gospelSouthern Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater 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 artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
work collegeA 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, KentuckyBerea is a city in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 9,851 at the 2000 census, a 2008 estimate put the population at 14,431. It is the fastest growing town in Kentucky and one of the fastest growing in the nation, having increased by 43.4% since 2000...
(south of
LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 65th largest in the United States. 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al and
racially integratedRacial 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; 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
AppalachiaAppalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from western 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 StatesThe 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 was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
ist
John Gregg FeeJohn 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
curriculumIn 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region 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-1800s. 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-
slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. 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 receive compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at
Camp NelsonThe Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park is a historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky...
. 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 degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
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. KentuckyBerea 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 schoolRacial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and 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 estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
to educate black students. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
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.
.
Academics and student life
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused 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 68th among
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
colleges
[http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/1955], making it a Tier one school. 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 FellowshipThe 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 2.5 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 , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people and covers ....
). 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 $800 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.2 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 collegeA 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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(
Alice Lloyd CollegeAlice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-born journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and New York native June Buchanan in 1923, initially under the name Caney Junior College, as an institution which...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the
Boone Tavern HotelBoone 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 technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
,
woodworkingWoodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many...
,
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
. 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
Technology is an important part of life at Berea College. To help students bridge the "digital divide," in 2000 Berea launched its laptop initiative as the top objective of its Sesquicentennial fundraising campaign. 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. There are about 5,800 data ports on campus, and the College is working to establish a campus-wide wireless network, with twenty-four on-campus wireless hotspots currently.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the
NAIAThe 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 permits membership to colleges and universities...
's
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic ConferenceThe 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-sectarianThe historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox....
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
s, It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular
denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
. The college's motto, "
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. Many General Studies courses are focused on Christian faith, and every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course in his/her Sophomore or Junior year. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are 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 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 VolunteersAppalachian 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-findings][http://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 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 is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Previous to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University, USA. Prof...
|
(1994–Present) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" Carney
John 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 RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The House is composed of 100 representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville 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. Campbellsville is twinned with Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland.-History:The city...
- John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
[John B. Fenn - Autobiography]
- Rodney Griffin
Rodney 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 2009. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritone is a type of classical male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above...
with Southern gospelSouthern Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater 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 artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
work collegeA 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, KentuckyBerea is a city in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 9,851 at the 2000 census, a 2008 estimate put the population at 14,431. It is the fastest growing town in Kentucky and one of the fastest growing in the nation, having increased by 43.4% since 2000...
(south of
LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 65th largest in the United States. 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
to be
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al and
racially integratedRacial 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; 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
AppalachiaAppalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from western 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 StatesThe 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 was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
ist
John Gregg FeeJohn 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
curriculumIn 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
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region 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-1800s. 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-
slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. 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 receive compensation...
supporters in that same year.
Fee spent the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at
Camp NelsonThe Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park is a historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky...
. 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 degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s were awarded in 1873.
In 1904, the
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
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. KentuckyBerea 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 schoolRacial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social...
, but it set aside funds to help establish the Lincoln Institute near
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and 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 estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
to educate black students. In 1950, when the law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea promptly resumed its integrated policies.
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.
.
Academics and student life
For the past decade, Berea College has been consistently ranked by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused 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 68th among
liberal artsLiberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing...
colleges
[http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/1955], making it a Tier one school. 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 FellowshipThe 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 2.5 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 , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people and covers ....
). 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 $800 million, down from its 2007 height of $1.2 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 collegeA 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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and one of only two in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(
Alice Lloyd CollegeAlice Lloyd College is a four-year liberal arts work college in Pippa Passes, Kentucky. It was co-founded by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-born journalist Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd and New York native June Buchanan in 1923, initially under the name Caney Junior College, as an institution which...
being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the
Boone Tavern HotelBoone 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 technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
,
woodworkingWoodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many...
,
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
, and secretarial work. Some of the work-study has helped to extend and support practice of traditional crafts from the Appalachian region, such as
weavingWeaving is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth...
. 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
Technology is an important part of life at Berea College. To help students bridge the "digital divide," in 2000 Berea launched its laptop initiative as the top objective of its Sesquicentennial fundraising campaign. 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. There are about 5,800 data ports on campus, and the College is working to establish a campus-wide wireless network, with twenty-four on-campus wireless hotspots currently.
Berea's sports teams are called the "Mountaineers." They compete in the
NAIAThe 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 permits membership to colleges and universities...
's
Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic ConferenceThe 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-sectarianThe historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox....
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
s, It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular
denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
. The college's motto, "
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is taken from
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as Acts and outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
17:26. Many General Studies courses are focused on Christian faith, and every student is required to take an Understandings of Christianity course in his/her Sophomore or Junior year. In effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of student and faculty, these courses are 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 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 VolunteersAppalachian 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-findings][http://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 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 is president of Berea College, Kentucky. Previous to this appointment he was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University, USA. Prof...
|
(1994–Present) |
Notable alumni
- John "Bam" Carney
John 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 RepresentativesThe Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The House is composed of 100 representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
from CampbellsvilleCampbellsville 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. Campbellsville is twinned with Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland.-History:The city...
- John B. Fenn - winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
[John B. Fenn - Autobiography]
- Rodney Griffin
Rodney 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 2009. He was also named Favorite Baritone in 2006...
- award-winning songwriter and baritoneBaritone is a type of classical male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above...
with Southern gospelSouthern Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
group Greater 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
- Harold "Hal" Moses, M.D. - Director Emeritus, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; Professor of Cancer Biology
- Tharon Musser
Tharon Myrene 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 AwardThe Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and...
-winning lighting designer known especially for her work on A Chorus LineA Chorus Line is a musical about seventeen 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 Reddick
Jeffrey Reddick is an American screenwriter, probably best known for creating the Final Destination series. He also wrote the horror film Tamara and the remake of Day of the Dead.-Filmography:...
- American screenwriter, best-known for creating the Final DestinationFinal Destination is a 2000 supernatural thriller, about a group of teenagers who cheat death by avoiding a plane crash when one of them, Alex, has a premonition of their deaths. Soon after their escape, they begin dying one-by-one in mysterious freak accidents. The script was originally written by...
series. [Jeffrey Reddick Bio ]
- Jack Roush
Jack 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 NASCARThe 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 Scheirbeck
Helen Maynor Scheirbeck is a Native American educator and activist. Born in Lumberton, North Carolina, she currently serves as the 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 Indian
- James Thindwa - Community activist with Chicago's "Jobs with Justice"
- Naomi Tutu (Nontombi Naomi Tutu) - daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...
- Muse Watson
Muse Watson is an American actor.Watson was born in Alexandria, Louisiana. He attended Louisiana Tech on a music stipend for two years before transferring to Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, where he performed for the first time on stage as Petruchio in a production of Shakespeare's The Taming of...
- American actor
- Billy Edd Wheeler
Billy 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, Bobby Darin, The Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Kenny Rogers, and Elvis Presley.Wheeler is also author of 16 plays...
- songwriter, performer and writer
- Carter G. Woodson
Carter Godwin Woodson was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to value and study Black History...
- African-American historian, author, and journalist. Co-founder of Black History MonthBlack History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States and Canada in February and the United Kingdom in the month of October....
External links