Allegheny College
Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1815, Allegheny is the oldest college in continuous existence under the same name west of the Allegheny Mountains. It is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the North Coast Athletic Conference and it is regionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
History
Early history
Allegheny was founded in April 1815 by the Reverend Timothy Alden, a graduate of Harvard's School of Divinity. The college is historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church beginning in 1833, but does not integrate religion into the classroom or pedagogy., Allegheny student for one year, eventual President of the United States
The first class, consisting of four male students, began their studies on July 4, 1816, without any formal academic buildings. Within six years, Alden accumulated sufficient funds to begin building a campus. The first building erected, the library, was designed by Alden himself, and is a notable example of early American architecture. Bentley Hall is named in honor of Dr. William Bentley, who donated his private library to the College, a collection of considerable value and significance. In 1824, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Alden, expressing the hope that his University of Virginia could someday possess the richness of Allegheny's library. Alden served as president of the college until 1831, when financial and enrollment difficulties forced his resignation. Ruter Hall was built in 1853.
, crusading muckraking journalist who exposed abuses by Standard Oil
Allegheny began admitting women in 1870, early for a US college; a woman was valedictorian of the Allegheny class of 1875. By the time Ida Tarbell, future journalist, arrived in 1876, nineteen women had attended Allegheny and only two had graduated. Tarbell described Ruter Hall in her writing, "...looking out on the town in the valley, its roofs and towers half hidden by a wealth of trees, and beyond it to a circle of round-breasted hills. Before I left Allegheny I had found a very precious thing in that severe room--the companionship there is in the silent presence of books."
In 1905, Allegheny built Alden Hall as a new and improved preparatory school. Over the decades, the college has grown in size and significance while still maintaining ties to the community.
Recent history
In 1971 the film Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me based on the Richard Farina novel was filmed on college grounds.While the word "Allegheny" is a brand for the college, it is also the name of a county, a river, and a mountain range, and the school has tried to prevent other entities from using this word. For example, Allegheny objected in 2006 when Penn State tried to rename one of its campuses "Allegheny". Allegheny president Richard Cook said 'Allegheny' was "our brand." It sued the Philadelphia's Allegheny Health and Research Foundation in 1997 to change its name.
Under president Richard J. Cook, Allegheny was reported to have had a "stronger endowment, optimal enrollment, record retention rates, innovative new programs and many physical campus improvements." These years were marked by tremendous growth in the endowment, marked by a $115-million fund-raising drive, bringing the endowment to $150 million. In February 2008, James H. Mullen Jr. was named the 21st president of Allegheny. He took office Aug. 1, 2008.
The college and the town cooperate in many ways. One study suggested the Allegheny College generates approximately $93 million annually into Meadville and the local economy. Since 2002, Allegheny hosts classical music festivals during the summer. In October 2006, the college attracted negative publicity after local enforcement cited over 100 people for underage drinking at a college party. In July 2007, a 1,500-pound wrecking ball demolishing part of Allegheny's Pelletier Library broke its chain, rumbled down the hill, careened "back and forth across the street," hit nine parked cars, wrecked curbs, and crashed into the trunk of an Allegheny student's car, pushing his car into two cars in front of him. Eight soccer balls in his car "likely lessened the impact of the wrecking ball," and possibly spared his life, according to a police officer on the scene. The student body voted to name the library's coffee shop "The Wrecking Ball" after the event.
The college has sponsored panels on unusual topics such as face transplants. Allegheny professors have joined highly visible initiatives; for example, Allegheny professor Michael Maniates, described as the "nation's leading authority on the politics of consumption," joined the board of a project about the twenty-minute film The Story of Stuff by filmmaker Annie Leonard, and generated headlines. Dr. Maniates said "We really need to think of ways of making it possible for people to think about working less and getting by on less." At present, environmental concerns are important at Allegheny, which in 2008 worked with Siemens to devise a "total energy use reduction plan" for the college.
Campus
The campus has 40 principal buildings on a central campus located just north of Downtown Meadville, a outdoor recreational complex north of campus, called the Robertson Athletic Complex, and the Bousson nature reserve, protected forest, and experimental forest.Residence Halls:
- North Village II is the newest residence hall on campus, which houses 230 residents in either quad or double living in an air conditioned environment.
- North Village houses 110 residents in air-conditioned suites housing 5 residents a suite. The most environmentally friendly of all the residence halls, it features geothermal heating, eco-friendly tiles, and rainwater recharge stations
- College Court is located at the southern part of the campus and houses 77 students in apartment style housing which shares a common courtyard and features a kitchen and air conditioning.
- Located about a 5-minute walk from campus, Allegheny Commons is a new addition to the campus and features 2 or 4 person apartments and full kitchens, which is air conditioned
- Brooks Hall, in addition to being one of the main dining halls, also houses female residents in 1, 2, or 4 person rooms. One of the oldest parts of the campus, Hullings Hall, is located as part of Brooks Hall.
- Walker Hall and Walker-Annex Hall are adjacent, and connected to, Brooks Hall and house both male and female students in singles or doubles. The buildings feature recently renovated lounges which include kitchens.
- Schultz Hall houses first-year students in double rooms. Located on the southern part of campus, this building also houses the Winslow Health Center.
- Located near the center of Campus, Caflisch Hall houses mostly sophomores and juniors in singles, doubles and some triples.
- Built in 1970, Ravine-Narvik Hall houses students in pods containing 4 double rooms and a shared bathroom. Located near the edge of campus, this dorm houses both male and female students.
- One of three all first-year halls, Baldwin Hall houses almost 200 students in double rooms.
- Edwards Hall is located near the Wise Center and houses co-ed all first-years in double rooms.
- The Pelletier Library had 922,540 volumes. Another estimate was that the library had 420,000 bound volumes, 227,000 microform titles, 1,000 periodicals, and 261,000 U.S. government and Pennsylvania state documents. The library has noteworthy Americana and Ida Tarbell collections. A computer lab, audiovisual center, and music listening system are there too. It is named after past president Lawrence L. Pelletier who served from 1955 to 1980. The Learning Commons, which is located in Pelletier Library, assists students with writing, research, public speaking and study skills, and also offers disability services.
- Newton Observatory houses a nine-inch refracting telescope and a computer-interfaced 10-inch Meade LX200 telescope with CCD camera. The Office of Public Safety and Security is also housed in the Newton Observatory.
- The Allegheny College Center for Experiential Learning or ACCEL coordinates career internships, off-campus study programs, service-learning, pre-professional advising, and leadership development.
- A Counseling Center, which has joined the Winslow Health Center in Schultz Hall, offers guidance for students in adjusting to student life. The center is staffed by registered therapists and provides crisis and walk in hours to students, free of charge.
- Winslow Health Center is staffed by a registered nurse and offers routine diagnosis and treatment. The center also offers free STI testing to students on a monthly basis.
- The main dining facility is in Brooks Hall, and students can also dine at McKinley's Food Court in the campus center. There have been efforts by students to support the relationship between food services and local farmers. Allegheny won a $79,545 grant in May 2009 to buy equipment to help with composting food waste, including a shredder mill, screening plant, conveyor, skid-steer loader and leaf collection system.
- A newly built Vukovich Center for Communication Arts featuring a garden roof for energy efficiency and beauty was completed in 2008 at a cost of $23 million. Robert Vukovich and Laura Vukovich made a substantial donation of $22 million in February 2001, part of which was used to construct the building. Allegheny has its own cable TV channels and a state-of-the-art television studio.
- The Center for Political Participation was founded at Allegheny in 2002 by political science professor Daniel M. Shea, following concerns about low youth voter turnout in the 2000 presidential election. The CPP conducts scholarly research related to youth political participation; sponsors on-campus events related to politics and the electoral process, such as panel discussions; and conducts community-outreach efforts, including the Model Campaign USA program, a campaign simulation designed to get high school students interested in electoral politics.
- Henderson Campus Center was recently renovated and includes McKinley's food court, the bookstore, the game room, Grounds for Change—the student-run coffee house, the post office, and campus offices of College departments as well as student organizations. Also included in the Henderson Campus Center are the Bowman, Penelac & Megahan Art Galleries. Allegheny has auctioned art at times to raise money to renovate other projects, such as the college's Doane School of Art.
- Sports facilities include the $13 million David V. Wise Sport & Fitness Center, which opened in 1997.
- A Women's Center which is located in the basement of Walker Hall was established in 2003 to be a resource for research on gender issues and women's history.
- The college established the Center for Economic and Environmental Development in 1997.
Academics
Allegheny is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
About 30% of the school's 2,100 students graduate in one of the "STEM" disciplines—science, technology, engineering, and math. Allegheny does not have any Reserve Officer Training Programs or ROTC, for Air Force, Army or Navy. The student to faculty ratio was 13 to 1.
Students must take at least two courses in a discipline other than their major or minor. Total credits for graduation are 128 semester credit hours, and no more than 64 credit hours can be from any one department. Almost all courses carry four semester hours of credit.
All students are required to take a three-seminar series which "encourages careful listening and reading, thoughtful speaking and writing, and reflective academic planning and self-exploration," to be completed in their first two years. Sophomores typically meet with faculty advisers eight times a year.
Allegheny seniors are required to complete a senior project in their major. Some senior projects can be quite ambitious; in 2007, one senior project involved comprehensive instructions for installing solar panels on the roof of a campus building.
Allegheny's academic calendar is divided into two 15-week semesters. The school year typically runs from the last week of August to mid-May, with a short fall break in mid-October, a Wednesday-to-Sunday Thanksgiving break, a month-long winter break from mid-December to mid-January, and a week-long spring break in the third week of March.
Study abroad
Allegheny offers direct enrollment programs at Lancaster University, England; James Cook University, Australia; University of Natal, South Africa; Capital Normal University, China; and Karls-Eberhard University, Germany. It offers language and area studies programs in Seville, Spain; Angers, France; Karls-Eberhard University, Germany; and Querétaro, Mexico. It offers internship programs in London, England; Paris, France; and Washington D.C. Programs geared to specific majors are also available, including environmental studies at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Israel; and the Center for Sustainable Development, Costa Rica; marine biology at the Duke University Marine Lab in North Carolina; and political science at American University. Allegheny faculty members have led domestic summer-study tours to New York, Yellowstone, Austria, Costa Rica, and South Africa. Individually arranged study abroad has taken students to Argentina, Canada, China, Cuba, Greece, Italy, Mexico, and Scotland.Cooperative and reciprocal programs
Allegheny has medical school cooperative programs available with three institutions: Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Drexel University and Jefferson Medical College. Allegheny offers pre-professional programs in law and health. It has an arrangement with Drexel University College of Medicine to admit two Allegheny students who meet specific criteria. It has an arrangement with the William E. Simon School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester to have preferred admission to selected students by the end of their junior year. Allegheny offers cooperative 3–2 liberal arts/professional programs in engineering with Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Washington University. There is also a 3–2 Master of Information Systems Management program reciprocal agreement with Carnegie Mellon University.Faculty
Four faculty won Fulbright Awards in March 2001. Faculty sometimes focus on the local area; for example, economics professor Stephen Onyeiwu conducted a study of manufacturing in the northwestern Pennsylvania region. Ninety percent of faculty have terminal degrees in their respective fields. Books by faculty include Congressional Women and Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan. A literary prize was won by Allegheny writing instructor Kirk Nesset for his collection "Paradise Road" in 2007. Faculty actively publish on a wide range of subjects from the biology of woodpeckers, to structural features of ribosomal RNA, to freshwater invertebrates. In 2018, Professor Shannan Mattiace won a Fulbright Award to teach and conduct research in Chile.Admissions
There were 5,479 applications for admission to the class of 2022 : 3,485 were admitted and 474 enrolled. The average high school GPA of enrolled freshmen was 3.51, and 35% had a high school GPA of 3.75 or higher. The middle 50% range of enrolled freshmen on SAT scores was 560–680 for reading and writing, and 560-660 for math, while the ACT Composite middle 50% range was 24–30.Rankings
Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked Allegheny 51st among U.S. liberal arts colleges in 2019.U.S. News & World Report ranked Allegheny as tied for 82nd among liberal arts colleges, tied at 19th for "Best Undergraduate Teaching, and tied for 43rd "most innovative" college in the United States for 2020.
Washington Monthly, which rates schools based on the degree to which they "contribute to the public good" by improving social mobility, producing research and promoting service, ranked Allegheny 39th among 214 liberal arts colleges in 2019.
Student life
Students
Students generally are required to live on campus for all four years, and may reside in traditional dormitories, apartment-style housing, or college-owned houses.The demographics of students as of fall 2015 were: White 75.9%; Hispanic/Latino 7.0%, Black 5.9%; Two or more races 4.7%, Non-resident alien 2.8%, Asian & Pacific Islander 2.4%; American Indian or Alaskan native 0.1%; Unknown 1.2%.
Allegheny students in 2008 come from 33 states and 25 other countries. Allegheny had a "diversity index" of.15 on a scale of.99=extremely diverse to.01=not diverse.
Students participate in volunteer activities: in the fall semester of 2011, the student body contributed 25,000 hours of volunteer service to the community. Some Allegheny students volunteered to help restore businesses in hurricane-ravished New Orleans. Residence halls and classrooms are closed during summers. An Allegheny Student Government has an active role in formulating college policy, curriculum choices, personal conduct, promoting cultural programs, and making decisions about the school's calendar.
Information about students is generally kept private in keeping with the 1974 "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act" which prohibits colleges from releasing information about their students without student permission. Accordingly, parents can not learn about their son's or daughter's grades unless a waiver is signed permitting release of such information. The privacy policy can sometimes lead to problems, particularly when students have mental health problems but the school is prevented legally from contacting parents. In 2002, one Allegheny student committed suicide, and his parents sued the school; a jury in 2006 found that the school was not liable or negligent. This case helped focus national attention on the competing issues of student privacy and parental rights.
Campus security includes 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night escort service, lighted pathways and sidewalks, controlled residence hall access, and 24-hour emergency telephones. Health service is offered. Despite proximity to the snowbelt, snow rarely shuts down the town of Meadville or the college.
Official college policy is to discourage underage drinking, although there have been incidents of violations at off-campus parties. Incoming students are required to take an online course about the dangers of alcohol abuse. The school punishes transgressions with disciplinary action.
Media
Students run a campus radio station WARC 90.3 FM and a publication called "The Allegheny Review" of undergraduate literature. The college hosts outside speakers. Allegheny has numerous student groups and organizations such as an astronomy club, a College Choir, an Outing Club, and a Peace Coalition. There are over 100 clubs and organizations offered at Allegheny. The Allegheny newspaper is called The Campus. It is distributed weekly at locations all over the college. It covers campus news, features, opinion and a wrap-up of the college sports. The Campus is entirely student-run, with an editorial board of students in charge of making all executive decisions for the publication. The Allegheny alternative magazine is called Overkill. It is tri-semester student publication distributed in unconventional locations around campus, such as in vending machines, fireplaces, and chandeliers. It features student editorials, poetry, non-fiction and fiction pieces, art, and photography with a highly distinctive design and attitude.Allegheny has welcomed a variety of entertainers and guest speakers over the last several years including John Updike, Dave Matthews, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, W.D. Snodgrass, Adam Sandler, George Carlin, The Vienna Choir Boys, Rusted Root, Ben Folds, The Roots, Stephen Lynch, The Fray, Jimmy Fallon, and comedian Wayne Brady. There have been "live" art shows in which invited artists, over an eight-hour period, created 10-by-10-foot "drawings" on gallery walls while spectators watched.