William Carey College - Crusader / Pine Burr Yearbook (Hattiesburg, MS)

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Academic Growth yj SFrom the beginning the expansion of ideas through aca- ;| Sdemic growth has been at the heart of William Carey ' s K objectives. As South Mississippi College, the school in its first four years acquired a reputation for a strong faculty, es- pecially in art, music, history, and home economics. The empha- sis in home economics certainly marked a distinction, for such a department was rare in the early 1900 ' s. When the school became Mississippi Woman ' s College the prin- cipal academic thrusts were in those disciplines thought neces- sary for the academic growth of young Christian females. While the efforts in home economics, called home science in the 1920 ' s, continued, records show that teacher education eclipsed all other majors in the golden days of Woman ' s College. A success- ful childhood education program highlighted the early rise of this department. Meanwhile, the fine arts, especially music, re- mained a favorite major for numerous girls. Perhaps these were some of those girls whose fathers thought of Woman ' s College as a finishing school , with at least one alumna being enrolled in the college to learn how to be a lady. In the transition from Woman ' s College to coeducational status in 1953, a rebuilding of the academic program emerged as the top priority. Within the program itself, priorities were estab- lished in developing the curricula: all disciplines were to be re- spectable; individual disciplines, one-by-one. were to become outstanding. The decision to start with music and the fine arts was a prudent one, for, as with sports, this would project the new name of William Carey College before the public with an iden- tity of excellence. The William Carey Chorale gained wide ac- claim exactly in the places needed: churches, to convince Bap- tists that they still had a college in South Mississippi, and schools, as a means of recruitment. The music program grew to such an extent that it eventually became a school in its own right. In a like manner, theatrical performances were carried on the road by the Serampore Players, a name happily chosen in that it called attention again to the man William Carey by iden- tifying the town in India where he labored so tirelessly. Next came an emphasis on teacher-training, again bringing to mind traditions of Woman ' s College. The success here even- tually evolved not only into a graduate program but to the present situation where certain principals and superintendents call our campus first. As a principal of one of Alabama ' s largest high schools noted. We call Carey because we are looking not just for good teachers, but men and women of character. In the mid-sixties pre-med became the discipline added to the list of excellence. The results in the seventies speak for them- selves: four years of leading the colleges of Mississippi in per- centage of students admitted to medical and dental school in re- lation to those applying. Closely related was the college ' s entry into nursing education in 1968. in this case, however, the excellence was already there, as the college merged with the prestigious Mather School of Nurs- ing in New Orleans, a leading nursing school of the South since 1925. In the seventies, the sphere of excellence extended to business and the arts and sciences. Surveys during the recent Southern Association accreditation study reveal most disciplines having an extraordinarily high percentage of their graduates entering and performing well in post-baccalaureate programs. What is more, the college continues to have one of the highest per- centages of Ph.D ' s on its faculty for a school of its size. Orga- nized now into four schools (arts and science, business, music, and nursing), a graduate division, and a division of continuing education, each part of the academic program has its own hon- ors program for upperlevel students, while there is an all-dis- cipline honors program, one of the oldest in Mississippi, for freshmen and sophomores. The goal of the eighties and beyond, of course, remains that of producing students whose academic growth does not stop with graduation, but who are like the student described by Chaucer, And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.