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Hillsdale College

 
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Hillsdale College
Seal‎
Motto Virtus Tentamine Gaudet (Strength rejoices in the challenge)
Established December 4, 1844
Type Liberal arts college
Endowment $282,116,702[1]
President Larry P. Arnn
Faculty 102 full-time, 37 adjunct
Undergraduates 1,304
Location Hillsdale, Michigan, USA
Campus Rural, 200 acres (45 buildings)
Athletics 11 varsity intercollegiate sports teams
Nickname Chargers
Website www.hillsdale.edu

Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan is a co-educational, liberal arts college known for being the first American college to prohibit in its charter all discrimination based on race, religion, or sex; its refusal of government funding[2][3]; and its monthly publication, Imprimis. The National Review has described Hillsdale as a "citadel of conservatism."[4] Over 1,300 students attend Hillsdale, and the college employs over 100 full-time faculty members. Hillsdale offers a variety of liberal arts majors, pre-professional programs, a teacher education program, and a journalism certificate program. Located in central-southern Michigan, United States, its 200 acre (81 ha) campus contains multiple instructional and office buildings, thirteen residence halls, seven fraternity and sorority houses, an athletic complex, music hall, arts center, and an arboretum.

Two classroom buildings, Kendall and Lane Halls, were completed in December 2005 and construction of the Grewcock Student Union, on the site formerly occupied by the Carr Library, was completed in January 2008. An extension of the campus is the 685-acre G.H. Gordon Biological Station near Luther, Michigan. In 2009, a lodging and dining facility was opened on the grounds.

Contents

History

Hillsdale College in the nineteenth century

Hillsdale College was established as Michigan Central College in Spring Arbor, Michigan in December 1844. The college later moved to Hillsdale, Michigan in 1853 and assumed its current name.

Hillsdale was the first American college to prohibit in its charter all discrimination based on race, religion or sex.[5] Hillsdale's founders were determined to uphold the principle of equality articulated by the Founders of America who had declared in 1776 that "all men are created equal." Hillsdale was founded by Freewill Baptists, and in the nineteenth century Hillsdale and Bates College in Maine were the only American colleges affiliated with the denomination. Hillsdale no longer has any denominational affiliation, and Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College in Oklahoma was founded after Hillsdale College disaffiliated itself with the denomination.

Because of its dedication to the principle of equality, Hillsdale quickly emerged as an early agitator for the abolition of slavery and for the education of black students. Blacks were admitted immediately after the 1844 founding and the College became the second[citation needed] school in the nation to grant four-year liberal arts degrees to women.

Many Hillsdale students served in the Union army during the American Civil War. A higher percentage of Hillsdale students enlisted than from any other non-military college.[6] During the war, male enrollment at the college was nearly nonexistent. Of the more than 400 men serving, half became officers. During the conflict, four Hillsdale students received the Medal of Honor, three became generals, and many more served as regimental commanders. For the more than sixty that died, a monument in their honor, which now stands between Kendall and Lane Halls, was created.

Hillsdale's non-discrimination policy remained controversial throughout its history. Hillsdale reports that its students refused to segregate their troops in the Army during World War I, and the Army tacitly consented. Furthermore Hillsdale's undefeated football team refused to play in the 1956 Tangerine Bowl when the committee refused to allow the team's black players to join the white players on the field, forcing the committee to select Juniata instead.[citation needed]

Hillsdale College's commitment to non-discrimination again came under fire in the 1970s following the enactment of affirmative action legislation. Because some of its students were receiving federal loans, the federal government declared it could require Hillsdale College to submit Assurance of Compliance forms mandated by Title IX as a condition of the continued receipt of federal financial assistance by two hundred Hillsdale students. Hillsdale refused compliance on the grounds that its own policies were less discriminatory than those the federal government would impose. Hillsdale also contended that it was not required to comply because it was a private school not receiving federal aid. However, the federal government argued that although the school was not funded directly, some students were receiving federal aid.

In 1979, this continuing battle with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) began to intensify. The College filed a petition for judicial review in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, asking the court to overturn a previous decision by the Reviewing Authority, Office of Civil Rights of HEW.

In December 1982, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Hillsdale's refusal to sign the compliance forms, but it also ruled that government aid to individual students could be terminated without a finding that a college actually discriminated.

In February 1984, in a related case, Grove City College v. T.H. Bell, Secretary U.S. Department of Education, the U. S. Supreme Court made a decision regarding arguments first made by Hillsdale College. It required every college or university to fulfill federal requirements because its students received federal aid.

As a result of the court's decision, students at Hillsdale can no longer receive federal student aid. (Parents of Hillsdale students are, however, eligible to take federal education tax credits and deductions for expenses they incur to send their children there, per a recent communication from the U.S. Department of Education.) Thus the entire operating budget (estimated at $46 million per year) of the college, including scholarships ($10,117,047 for 2005), must come from private funding sources. In 2007, Hillsdale extended their ban on taking government aid to monies from states; the College has offered to match any funds that a student would have received from a state with its own aid.

Since it refuses to accept funds from the federal government, even indirectly, the College must raise enough extra revenue to pay the equivalent of the federal loans that it refuses.

Recent history

Dr. Larry P. Arnn currently serves as president of the college. During his tenure at Hillsdale, Dr. Arnn has led the school through an unprecedented[citation needed] expansion in student recruitment, faculty recruitment, expansion of private funding, expansion and renovation of campus buildings and relationships with both national and international world leaders, providing opportunities that exceed[citation needed] most colleges and universities of much larger size. Dr. Arnn is considered by many[who?] to be a foremost authority on Sir Winston Churchill, having served as director of research for Sir Martin Gilbert, now an adjunct professor at Hillsdale.[citation needed] The strong[weasel words] history and political science at Hillsdale College, coupled with the on-campus teaching of adjunct faculty member Sir Martin Gilbert, makes Hillsdale a world leader[weasel words] in Churchill and World War II studies.[citation needed] Dr. Arnn has also established an annual Winston Churchill Dinner, featuring leaders such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (1989). Before coming to Hillsdale, Dr. Arnn served as president of the Claremont Institute. Dr. Arnn, who leads the private college in Michigan, is one of the highest paid liberal arts college presidents in the United States[citation needed]. He has a base salary of $331,773 in 2003-04, with benefits of $145,157, putting his total compensation at $476,930[citation needed].

Rankings

Hillsdale currently ranks 97th in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report listing of best American Liberal Arts colleges,[7] and ranks second in the Princeton Review's The Best 361 Colleges 2009 listing of colleges where students are "most conservative."[8] It also ranks number seven in the Princeton Review's listing of the top ten private best-value colleges.[9]

Other Rankings from the Princeton Review include:

  • #18 for "Alternative Lifestyles not an alternative"
  • #13 for "Don't Inhale" (No Marijuana on campus)
  • #3 for "Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution"
  • #4 for "Most Religious Students"

The Princeton Review continues, giving Hillsdale College an Academic intensity rating of 96 out of 100 (100 being most difficult), and an admissions rating of 96 out of 100 (100 being most selective).

Controversies

Academic freedom

In 1987, Hillsdale College's dean of women initiated a lawsuit against another faculty member, alleging he had made slanderous remarks about her in the context of a controversy around her role in the selection of the editor of the student newspaper, The Hillsdale Collegian. A letter to the editor signed by sixteen faculty members questioned the appropriateness of legal action in this dispute. One of the three faculty members who had prepared the letter, history professor Warren Treadgold, was informed afterwards that his probationary appointment would not be renewed. A subsequent investigation by a committee of the American Association of University Professors concluded that Hillsdale College had violated the Association's standards in the context of the nonreappointment, and found evidence that the administration had made that decision because of Treadgold's role in preparing the letter, although this activity "should have been protected under generally accepted principles of academic freedom".[10]

Roche scandal

Hillsdale gained national attention in 1999, when Lissa Jackson Roche, the daughter-in-law of college president George Roche III, was found dead in Slayton Arboretum shortly after alleging that she and Roche had conducted an extramarital affair for over 19 years. Two weeks after her death, the college's board of directors placed George Roche III on a leave of absence. On November 10, Roche resigned and emphatically denied having a sexual relationship with his son's wife.[11][12]

Lissa's death was ruled a suicide by local investigators. In Hillsdale: Greek Tragedy in America's Heartland, Roger Rapoport said that key questions remain unanswered. He called for the death to be investigated as a homicide[citation needed].

Academics

Off-campus study

Off-campus study programs are the Washington Journalism Internship at the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.; the James C. Quayle Journalism Intern Program; Hillsdale College Professional Sales Intern Program; Hillsdale in Seville, Spain at the Center for Cross-Cultural Study; the Hillsdale/Oxford Scholars Program; Hillsdale College/Universität des Saarlandes, at Saarbrücken, Germany; Hillsdale College Intensive Language Summer School in Tours, France; Hillsdale College Intensive Language & Culture Summer Program in Würzburg, Germany; Hillsdale College at Regent's College, London; Hillsdale College at the University of St. Andrews, at St. Andrews, Scotland; and, the renowned Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program (WHIP), where students reside one semester in Washington, D.C., studying Political Science by working 35–40 hours per week in government or private sector positions, and take two classroom courses in either American Politics or Public Policy, and either Contemporary American Foreign Policy or National Security, for a total of 15 semester credits.

Campus Life

Athletics

The College has a variety of sports teams that compete on the NCAA Division II level, including baseball, men's and women's basketball, football, softball, women's swimming, track and field, cross country, and volleyball. The college also has club teams in both ice hockey and lacrosse. The Chargers, as the Hillsdale athletics teams are known, compete in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Football coach Frank "Muddy" Waters made a name for himself as the head coach at Hillsdale from 1954-1973. The football stadium, Frank Waters Stadium, is named in his honor.

National Championships:

  • 1985: Football - NAIA Division I

National Runners-up:

  • 1957: Football - NAIA
  • 1992: Men's Cross Country - NAIA
  • 1994: Men's Cross Country - NAIA

Basketball Final Four:

  • 1981: Men's Basketball - NAIA Division I

Greek Life

North-American Interfraternity Conference Fraternities

National Panhellenic Conference Sororities

Further information

Since 1981, Hillsdale College has presented National Leadership Seminars nationwide on issues of politics, economics and culture. To date, more than 19,000 community, business and media leaders around the country have attended these seminars. Past speakers include Benazir Bhutto, Benjamin Netanyahu, Tony Snow, Dan Quayle, Midge Decter, and Caspar Weinberger.

Hillsdale College often features prominent speakers at college events, including its Center for Constructive Alternatives (CCA) program. These have included former president Ronald Reagan, Jesse Jackson, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Clarence Thomas, P.J. O'Rourke, Ann Coulter and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in whose honor a statue was erected in Hillsdale college in 2008.[13]

Hillsdale College's campus includes Hillsdale Academy, a private K-12 liberal arts school.

In 2007, the college said that its entering freshman class was its best ever in terms test scores and grade-point averages.[14]

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

Present faculty

Visiting faculty & fellows

Past faculty

References

  1. ^ http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/directory/brief/drglance_2272_brief.php
  2. ^ http://www.stateuniversity.com/universities/MI/Hillsdale_College.html
  3. ^ Articles of Association
  4. ^ http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzIyZWQzYmY0ODJiNDU0ZWQ5YTQzODJkYjg0YmI4ZmY=
  5. ^ http://www.stateuniversity.com/universities/MI/Hillsdale_College.html
  6. ^ http://www.co.hillsdale.mi.us/hc-history.htm
  7. ^ http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1libartco_brief.php
  8. ^ "Top 10 Most Politically Conservative Colleges - MSN Encarta". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1257024031450771. 
  9. ^ http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/college/?article=Best_Values_2006
  10. ^ Academic Freedom and Tenure: Hillsdale College, Michigan. Academe: Bulletin of the AAUP, May-June 1988, pp. 29-33.
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ [2]
  13. ^ Imprimis, July-August 2008
  14. ^ [3]
  15. ^ [4]

External links

v • d • e
Colleges and universities in Michigan
Public institutions
Private institutions
Community Colleges
v • d • e
Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference


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