Lebanon Valley College - Quittapahilla Yearbook (Annville, PA)

Page 11 text:

. . . Professor and Mrs. D. Clark Carmean A dedication of this issue of the Quiltapahilla is sincerely and gratefully made to Professor and Mrs. Carmean by the Junior Class of Lebanon Valley College, in- dicating, it is hoped, the appreciation felt toward them for all of their many services to the college and the student body . . . understanding management of a wide- open dorm, intelligent and efficient work in the field of music, unselfish assistance in the preparation of the pictorial part of this volume, and innumerable kindnesses on a thousand and one different occasions.

Page 10 text:

The lid isn ' t removed when a fellow gets off to college and becomes, to a degree probably greater than ever before, seli-dependent. Yet the necessary removal of some of the external sanctions which previously limited his sphere of activity may make that lid seem very, very light. W ithout doubt the most difficult problem confronting the proctor of a dormitory — any dorm for that matter, but especially of a men ' s — is to get the inhabitants of that dormitory to do as Dr. Shettel ' s Greeks did: to enter into life with the lid on. If the finding of a workable and successful solution to this problem alone were taken into consideration, it would have to be acknowledged without reserve that Professor and Mrs. Carmean are completely filling the requirements of the task which they undertook when they moved into the suite of rooms over the archway of the Men ' s Dormitory. Nor has the creation of a model society involving more than one hundred young men been effected by the application of strict rules enforced by the proctor, for now more than ever does there exist a truly democratic form of self-government, free of external interference. And all of the dormitory inhabitants like and respect the couple placed over them by the college administration. No finer evidence of this could be desired than the tea set given to them by the boys last Christmas, in the purchase of which every resident male student had a small share. Proctors of This Wide-Open Dorm Are

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The story of Lebanon Valley College, now approach- ing its seventy-fiith anniversary, is an interesting and stimulating account, not of a few brilliant or wealthy men, but of a people and an ideal. The people were the members of the eastern conferences of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ; the ideal, that of estab- lishing and maintaining a co-educational institution of learning in which the highest scholarship should be fostered and encouraged in a Christian atmosphere, and in which religion should subsist without sectarian- ism. Form was given to that ideal when that people founded Lebanon Valley College at Annville, Pa., in 1866. To an outside observer the history of the college from its opening by the first president, Dr. Thomas Rees Vickroy, on May 7, 1866, in a building donated by the old Annville Aca demy, which is now South Hall, might seem to consist merely in increases in the student body and corresponding increases in the faculty, the pur- chase of new grounds, and the erection of new buildings. The inner history, however, was marked by a long and bitter struggle against insuperable obstacles, a struggle carried on by heroic men and women on the faculty, among the students, and in the conferences. Many people doubted the wisdom of providing higher education for the Church ' s young people. These per- sons launched a violent attack against the educational policy of which the college was the fruit. Their an- tagonistic efforts almost put an end to the college in the first year of its existence. But the conference stood loyally by the institution it had created and fought the matter through, though it meant in the end the drop- ping of many valued members from the Church. Another crisis developed about twenty years later over the question of relocating the college. This problem so seriously divided the supporters of the college that all progress was halted. In the emergency Dr. E. Ben- jamin Bierman was called to the presidency in 1890. On the wave of enthusiasm which he was able to set in motion, a policy of permanency and enlargement was accepted, resulting in the renovation of buildings and an increase in the number of students. Dr. Roop became the chief administrative officer in 1897. Under his guidance the college entered a new period of expansion in which Engle Music Hall, the Carnegie Library, and North Hall were first built. When the old Administration Building was destroyed by fire, old friends and new patrons rallied to build a new Administration Building, a dormitory for the men, and a heating plant. Dr. Roop also provided proper quarters and modern equipment for the science de- partments. Administration Building The inauguration of the late President George Daniel Gossard marks the beginning of the greatest era of prosperity. In the course of his term of office the student body trebled in numbers, the faculty standard was raised, and the elimination of all phases of secondary education gave the institution true college status. During this same period two great endowment cam- paigns were completed, the college ' s economic position . made sound, and her permanency placed beyond question. The future of Lebanon Valley College, now a matter of conjecture and wishful thinking, will resolve itself into the continuation of the story of a people and an ideal. The people will still be, for the most part, the members of the eastern conferences of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, with their numbers augmented, to be sure, by other friends who have been attracted to the support of the college in the passing of time. Moreover, the ideal must be found to be identical with that which three quarters of a century ago was deemed of sufficient worth to be advanced even at the risk of foundering an infant denomination. At the present time President Clyde A. Lynch is writing the title for the next chapter of the dramatic story. The turn that the story is to take is dependent upon the extent to which his ambitious plans can be projected into realities by a people aroused to the energetic, and perhaps sacrificial, support of their ideal.