Loading ...A really fascinating story about Wheaton College, the Harvard of evangelical Christian colleges, was set to run in Books & Culture, but got killed at the last minute.
The bad news: You won’t be able to read it in the January/February 2010 issue (which retails for $4.95). The good news: You can read it for free here.
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January 21st, 2010 at 12:40 pm
This is an interesting article. I was in law school with a couple of people who had graduated from Wheaton, and I’d always thought of it as being a cut above the normal “evangelical” school, but this article suggests that the grass eaters are trying to take over there, too. I don’t know what it is about academic freedom that so scares conservatives.
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Hey Frank, you ought to know. What do the real Harvard students think about people using the phrase “the Harvard of the XYZ”?
As the story goes, two strangers met at a cocktail party and introduced themselves. One of them proudly mentioned his alma mater followed with “You know, the Harvard of the South”. “Very interesting” was the reply. “I graduated from the Harvard in Cambridge.”
My own school enjoys an enviable academic reputation, both nationally and especially in the region. Yet I rarely heard any student boast of it being “the Harvard of” anything. We just wanted to be the best “us”.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:14 pm
That’s an interesting question, Jose, and though you asked Frank I’ll give it a shot, too. During my time there, during which I was not an undergraduate like Frank, but merely in trade school (law school), I never heard anyone mention it. I suspect that their attitude would be that there is only one Harvard of anything. My undergraduate school was also referred to in the “Harvard-of” category, but not usually by anyone there.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Brother Caleb, I did not realize that you were also of the Crimson Tide (Yankee Branch) or else I would have addressed the question to you as well. Apologies.
What was your undergraduate school? Rice University in Houston for me.
January 25th, 2010 at 10:43 am
These guys at Wheaton just need a Prophet to guide them and be done with it. Works pretty well for BYU—the Harvard of Mormondom.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Nothing so grand for me, Jose; I went to a small liberal arts college in Lexington called Transylvania University (I’m not making this up), which is often thought of locally as the Harvard of the north side of Lexington. I once saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed Harvard to be “the Vanderbilt of the North . . .”
January 25th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
A tip of my Stetson to y’all from Transylvania University. Stephen F. Austin, the “Father of Texas”, was a graduate. Also Happy Chandler, Jefferson Davis, Cassius Clay (the abolitionist, not the boxer), two vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. Not shabby at all. I see that it was originally an Episcopalian school, then Presbyterian, and now belong to the Disciples. Surely Buddhism is next.
By any chance does the school have an archrival, perhaps the “Harvard of Wilmore”?
January 26th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Well, the Methodists need their Harvard, too, so I suppose Asbury in Wilmore would fill that bill, though there’s also Kentucky Wesleyan out in Owensboro, Kentucky, where it moved from Winchester, which is next door to Lexington. When I was at the Harvard of law schools, I was a member of Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church in Cambridge, which is virtually located on the law school campus. Old Dean Griswold of the law school was supposed to have sworn that he would have the land the church sat on for his law school or die trying; given that the church is still there and he’s not, I guess he died trying. I was amused by the fact that our district superintendent, who preached there from time to time, was a Kentuckian, who had gone to Kentucky Wesleyan.
Transy’s educational rival in Kentucky, though, is Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky (also not far from Lexington), a school of similar size and type. People often refer to Transy and Centre as the Harvard and Yale of Kentucky.
The fact that Stephen Austin went to Transy shows the pattern of migration from Kentucky to Texas that occurred in the early to mid 1800s. I have compared notes with any number of Texans, and usually found Kentucky in the genealogy somewhere.
Transy is one of those schools with lots of history, but which was on hard times for much of that history. During the early to mid 1800s, it was among the top schools in the nation, but after the civil war, it fell on hard times until after the turn of the last century, when it began to regain some of its cachet. Today, it is well regarded as a liberal arts college, and I, for one, got a wonderful liberal arts education there. Of the famous alums you mentioned, only Happy Chandler is of recent vintage, though his grandson Ben, now our Congressman, did not go there.
My favorite old-time alum is the first US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, whose grandson of the same name later also served as a justice. Harlan the elder wrote a famous dissenting opinion in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 which affirmed the legality of the “separate but equal” doctrine. In his dissent, Harlan predicted that the court didn’t realize the can of worms that it was opening, and that if it allowed its ruling to stand, the ruling would lead to a whole new world of segregation in the South. Sadly, he was right.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Contrary to what many folks believe, neither Asbury College nor Asbury Theological Seminary is affiliated with The United Methodist Church. They are independent of the UMC and of each other. I am no fan of the seminary. I daresay that it could benefit from a bit more denominational guidance, but instead the school often acts as though it should direct the church. There have been suggestions that ATS receive certain financial benefits of being a denominational seminary without having the inconvenience of following certain standards. Ah well, maybe it’s better for us both that we keep some distance.
Turning back to Wheaton, their list of famous alumni is nowhere near as distinguished as Transylvania’s but there are a few names worth recognizing. Billy Graham is the big star. Phil Yancey and Bart Ehrman are there too. But Wes Craven, really?
January 29th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I attended Wheaton graduate school for one year, ’80-’81. I remember an overwhelming atmosphere of fear and right wing political correctness there. And it wasn’t coming from the faculty, but from the students themselves. Many faculty I noticed had learned to speak in code, and to elicit from students opinions they themselves were too fearful to express directly, for fear of being reported by the children of rich alumni. It was quite farcical. I do recall as well there was a gay student active there even then, though of course they were completely clandestine and fearful. Academically the place was OK, but nothing to write home about.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
I meant “gay student group”, not “gay student”.
January 30th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Niall, one hates to admit it, but that’s about the image I had of Wheaton, that is, moderately good academics coupled with a great deal of indoctrination.