Beloit College developed from
the vision of seven New Englanders, a vision that began taking shape as they met in a stateroom
of the steamer Chesapeake, crossing Lake Erie in early summer 1844. Their plans led to a series
of four conventions involving both clergy and laity from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
Known as Friends of Education, these participants gathered to consider offers for a frontier college.
The Friends of Education accepted an offer of $7,000 in supplies, materials, labor, and a small
amount of cash from the village of Beloit. This was the backbone of the College's corporeal form.
Members of the third and fourth conventions chose a Board of Trustees. The board members adopted
a charter that was enacted into law by the Territory of Wisconsin Legislature on Feb. 2, 1846.
The foundation for Middle College, the oldest college building northwest of Chicago in continuous
academic operation, was laid in 1847, and classes began that fall. The College conferred its first
degrees in 1851.
The College's early curriculum was cast mainly in the Yale mold. Aratus Kent, chairman of the Beloit
College board of trustees, and the first faculty members, Jackson J. Bushnell and Joseph Emerson,
built a solid casing with Yale mortar before another Yale graduate, Aaron Lucius Chapin,
accepted Beloit's first presidency in December 1849. He served until 1886, and during his presidency
the College became widely known for its scholastic excellence.
From its beginning, the College showed both a solid classical tradition and a penchant for innovation
and experimentation in curriculum. The administration of Edward Dwight Eaton, Beloit's second
president, witnessed the addition of a philosophical course to the classical groundwork, including
new emphasis on the sciences. A course in evolution was offered as early as the 1890s, whereupon
students were given greater latitude in the selection of their courses. Beloit enrolled its first
women students in 1895.
New courses and other innovations, including home economics and journalism, flourished under Melvin
Brannon's administration after World War I. The Brannon era saw substantial growth in the endowment
assets of the College and a refurbishing of the physical plant.
Irving Maurer returned to his alma mater as president in 1924 and served until his death
in 1942. The period of 1927 to 1933 was, like the 1890s, a remarkable building era. President Maurer's
administration also put renewed emphasis on the liberal arts and spiritual values, and continued
resistance to the post-war demand for the "practical."
After a period of more than two years, when World War II sharply reduced enrollment and presented
many other problems, Carey Croneis became president in 1944. The nine-year administration
of Beloit's fifth president saw an influx of war veterans swell enrollment to more than 1,000, and
additional buildings and other campus improvements were completed. As Beloit celebrated its centennial,
President Croneis noted that the College had grown to a "lusty educational manhood surpassing anything
that President Chapin envisaged."
The administration of Miller Upton, who served for 21 years, was marked by a long period
of intensive self-study. This led to a series of far-reaching curricular changes, including enrollment
growth to the highest level in Beloit's history and the extensive development of the physical plant.
This building period included a new library, science center, performing arts center, anthropology
building, and seven new residential buildings. The College's "World Outlook" program was inaugurated
in 1960 and continues today. The innovative "Beloit Plan" of year-round education, introduced in
1964, brought increased national recognition to the College, and many elements of that distinctive
curricular program also continue today.
Beloit's seventh president, Martha Peterson, was inaugurated in the fall of 1975 and served
until her retirement in 1981, when she was named president emerita. She had come to Beloit after
serving as president of Barnard College for eight years and as former chairman of the American Council
on Education. In her inaugural address she asked "all who love and respect this historic College
to help us hold high the banners of our traditions, our liberal arts commitment and our daring to
be different."
During the late 1970s, the College responded effectively to problems of smaller enrollments, an
altered pattern of student interests and the demands of an inflationary economy. A traditional two-semester
academic year was restored, extra-curricular life enhanced, improvements to the campus completed
and the endowment resources expanded. A long-range plan for the 1980s also was developed.
Roger Hull was elected as Beloit's eighth president in 1981. During his administration, enrollment
increased each year and the endowment reached its highest level in history. Annual fund raising
and alumni support also reached record highs. At the same time, significant new academic and career
counseling programs were introduced. The Hull years saw accelerated plant improvements, including
new facilities for music and economics, extensive renovation of residence halls, creation of a new
campus center and sports-fitness center and a multi-million-dollar library renovation. Hull left
to assume the presidency of Union College in New York in 1990.
In 1991 Beloit's ninth president, Victor E. Ferrall, Jr., arrived in time to oversee the
most ambitious fund-raising drive in the College's history, the $100-million Sesquicentennial Campaign,
a major focus and success that was completed in 1997. A strong proponent of the liberal arts tradition,
Ferrall dedicated himself to preparing the College to meet the academic, enrollment, and financial
challenges of the 21st Century.
In August 2000, John Burris came to Beloit College as its 10th President. He arrived to find
the College is in its best position in decades and just in time to welcome students into newly renovated
residence and dining halls. He had been on campus less than a week when the new chair of the College's
Board stepped forward to establish a $2-million endowed scholarship fund for students from South
Africa.
Over the years, Beloit College has continued
to stress the values of individual concern and growth, reliance on the students'
desire to learn, flexibility in the process of that learning, and a rigorous academic
program in the best traditions of the liberal arts. With all the change, the College's
central character as an institution of concentrated personal discovery and intense
learning has carried through. No one can forecast Beloit's future accurately,
but neither could the men who gathered in the Chesapeake stateroom in 1844. Reality
expanded their dreams. And today there is no reason why those who plan Beloit's
future cannot expect the same.
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History of the College