1829 - The first Associate Reformed Presbyterians arrived in Warren and Henderson counties.

1834 - a movement was started to establish a state university but the chartering of the institution was delayed for a quarter of a century.

1850 – Strong congregations had been developed at South Henderson, Cedar Creek and Monmouth and two unusual leaders had appeared in James C. Porter, pastor of the Cedar Creek Church, and Robert Ross, pastor of the South Henderson congregation. 

1852 – Began the dream of Monmouth College. The two men talked of their plans to members of their congregations, they spread ideas about an academy in the villages, they interested the people in the advantages of higher education. James G. Madden, a prominent Monmouth lawyer, insisted that the new institution should be on the college level and that it should be established in Monmouth.

1853 – On April 18, 1853, the decision was made to set up Monmouth Academy. Thus it became our Founder’s Day. Monmouth had several advantages in location, transportation facilities, especially the new Burlington Railroad, and in physical and moral attractiveness. It was also location in one of the most promising agricultural areas of the Midwest. The facts that it was not a river town, like Oquawka, was in its favor- river towns were notoriously boisterous and therefore undesirable as seats of learning. The academy was, properly speaking, a high school. There were few public schools established yet and the general taxpayer was unwilling to assume the burden that schools would impose; therefore, those who wanted to educate their children beyond the rudiments of reading, writing, and reckoning had to provide the instruction themselves.

On the first Monday of November 1853, the new academy opened with the Rev. James R. Brown, a graduate of Miami University, as principal, and Maria Madden, sister of James Madden, as assistant principal.

1854 - In the fall of 1854, the academy moved to the basement of the Presbyterian Church on South Main Street.

The Presidential Years of Rev. David A. Wallace
The first president of MC 1856-1878

1856 – The state legislature was petitioned for a collegiate charter and Dr. David A. Wallace was elected president of the college.

On September 3, 1856, Monmouth Academy became Monmouth College, consecrated by prayer, a song, and the faith of the founders. The board rented a little schoolhouse built of hand-hewn timbers that stood on the corner of East First Avenue and South First Street.

November 1856 – One of the reasons for the popularity of Monmouth College was the fact that it was coeducational. The very first circular, dated November, 1856, stated that “male and female pupils” would be admitted on the same terms. By 1862 the “males and females” had become “ladies and gentlemen,” and they were admitted “on the same footing” to classes, laboratories, and the library. In this respect Monmouth was quite progressive, as coeducation was still considered an experiment and Wallace himself had been skeptical about it when he arrived in Monmouth.

In October 1856, the new building (on North A Street) ready for occupancy and at the same time David A. Wallace arrived from Boston and began his duties as president of the college. The first college hall was a solid brick structure, 40 by 80 feet and two stories high.  It contained a chapel seating 300 persons and there were eight well-lighted classrooms. Heat was furnished by stoves and fireplaces and a flaw in one of these caused a small fire in the building several years later. The original plans called for a belfry but there is reason to believe that the belfry was never constructed. The only course that was a definite fixture from the very beginning was Bible; all students were required to attend daily chapel and recite a Bible lesson at least once a week.

The troubled year of 1856 was not a propitious time to endow a college. There were crop failures throughout the Mississippi Valley and the farmers from whom the strength of the college was to come faced economic ruin. Conditions became worse in 1857. This was the atmosphere in which Wallace began his career as the first president of Monmouth College.

1857- On February 16, 1857, the trustees drafted a charter and it was approved on this day by the Illinois legislature.

In the fall of 1857 the curriculum was expanded into two courses of instruction, the classical course and the scientific course. Each course in turn was divided into a preparatory department and a collegiate department. The main purpose of the preparatory departments was to lay the foundations and provide the background necessary for the work on the higher college level. When the faculty was convinced that the student was ready for advanced work he would be promoted to the regular freshman class in the college division.

The cost of an education at Monmouth College in the early days varied somewhat according to the course pursued. As the college year was arranged on the quarter system, there were three sessions scheduled between the first week of September and the last week of June. The first term cost $12 in tuition for either the classical or the scientific course. The second and third terms cost $9 each. There was a matriculation fee of $5, an incidental fee of $10 per year and a bookkeeping fee of $5 per term. The entering freshman, provided he used cash and not script, paid on the average $60.

1859 – When the college first occupied this building (at North A Street) in 1856 it was more than ample to meet the needs of the day but with the growth of enrollment and expansion of class and club activities the building was crowded to the point of inefficiency by 1859. A new building with enlarged facilities on a better site became a necessity but with the financial condition of the college at a low ebb no one dared to predict how the new campus could be secured short of a miracle performed by the good fairy. Fortunately for the college two of its friends, A.Y. and David Graham (who were too substantial to be mistaken for fairies) offered to donate ten acres of land for a campus and the proceeds from the sale of twenty-five acres of land which they owned in what is not the college addition to the city of Monmouth. The land and money was offered on condition that a suitable brick or stone building should be started by September 1, 1861 and finished not later than September 1, 1864.

1860 – This generous offer was of course immediately accepted and the college came into possession of the land that became the center of the modern campus. On October 25, 1860, a committee was appointed to draw up the plans for the proposed building and to suggest means for securing additional money to defray construction costs. Wallace was chairman of the committee which included such staunch supporters of the college as Ivory Quinby, James G. Madden, A.C. Harding, Alexander Young, J.A. Young, and A. Y. Graham. Meanwhile Ivory Quinby was in Chicago drawing up plans and specifications for the building with the firm of Carter and Bauer. This work was completed by November 30, 1860. The specifications called for a brick structure three stories high with basement and attic. The overall measurements of the building were seventy-eight feet eight inches by fifty-three feet eight inches not county projections and porticoes. A square cupola added a decorative touch to the rood and highly polished hardwood railings made the stairways attractive and safe. A full basement was provided and each section of the basement except the coal rooms was finished for classroom use. The main floors were divided into classrooms of good size. There was also a chapel room but no provision was made for offices. Finally there were ‘two double privies fitted up with suitable seats with hinged covers.’

1861- Actual construction began on the building in 1861 under the personal supervision of Wallace, who was not only chairman of the building committee but treasurer of the building fund, and in the last analysis responsible for the entire project. His work was made more difficult when builders gave up their contract and severed relations with the college. The building committee decided to complete the work themselves and, much to the surprise of everyone, finished the job with speed and efficiency and at a saving of one thousand dollars of the original contract price.

On Friday April 19, 1861, the Monmouth Atlas published the following notice: 

Persons desiring to form a military company for the purpose of aiding in defense of our country are invited to meet at the Court House in this city tomorrow, Saturday evening, at seven o' clock.

FREEMAN!  DO YOU HEAR THE CALL?
The next day the city was electrified with excitement. It spread onto the campus and charged the air of Old Main. Saturday evening the courtroom was crowded with students and townspeople and the rafters rang with eloquent speeches made by young men on fire with patriotism. Soon ninety-nine of the one hundred men needed for the company had enlisted. The tradition persists that when it was announced that one man more was needed to fill the unit, Josiah Moore, a junior in the college, stood up in the rear of the room and announced, "I am that man Moore." Later in the evening he was elected captain of the company. Within ten days the newly enlisted men were ordered to Peoria. On April 29 they gathered at the C. B. and Q. station with thousands of Monmouth citizens and the entire student body present to give them a rousing sendoff. Before the war was over the student body, the faculty, and the trustees furnished one brigadier general, four majors, seventeen captains, thirteen lieutenants, one quartermaster, two adjutants, and three chaplains, making a total of forty-one commissioned officers. The college also furnished forty-eight non-commissioned officers and one hundred and forty-three privates to the Union army. The grand total was two hundred and thirty-two men and one out of eight made the supreme sacrifice.

1862 – After overcoming many difficulties the building was finished in August, 1862. But a considerable debt had been incurred during the construction, and the college did not take possession of the new structure until this debt was liquidated in the spring of 1863. The total cost of this building, including grading and furniture, was $18,489. When it is remembered that the building was completed and paid for during the trying years of the Civil War, the achievement takes on greater significance than if the structure had been erected in more normal times. The building, which became known as “Old Main,” stood as a monument to the exuberant faith that Wallace and the trustees had in the future of the college.

1863 - By 1863 there were no able-bodied men on the campus, only boys under military age and young women.

1864 - In 1864 some of the veterans began to trickle back to college; some had been wounded, others had sick-leave, still others had served their term and now were anxious to complete their education.

In October 1864 larger groups began to return and then in June 1865 all the troops left in the field came marching back.

1868 – After the Civil War Monmouth men played “hardball,” which was really baseball, at every opportunity. This game was usually played scrub style on any vacant lot. In 1868 a Monmouth baseball team played Lombard College (Knox College now) at Galesburg in what was apparently the first intercollegiate sports contest in the history of the college.

1869- The revised charter of 1869 made some important changes in the authority of the president and the faculty and in the relationship between president and faculty. According to the original charter it would have been quite easy for the president to act independently on matters pertaining to courses and instruction but the charter of 1869 made it clear that the faculty as a group had the authority to determine the curriculum and also to make the rules and regulations necessary for an efficiently operated institution. The charter of 1869 and the by-laws later adopted made the government of Monmouth College quite liberal and democratic.

1873 – Finally, the hard times that came with the panic of 1873 and which continued for several years made it impossible to collect many pledges because of bankruptcy or financial embarrassment of the generous subscribers.

1877 – In 1877 the Student Athletic Association was formed which was constantly reorganized and within the next decade an Inter-collegiate Athletic Association developed which included in addition to Monmouth, Knox College, Illinois College, and the Champaign Industrial Institute.

1878 – The resignation of David Wallace in 1878 was accepted with regret by the Senate of the college.

Rev.  J.B. McMichael, D.D.
The Second President of MC from 1878-1897

1878 – Jackson McMichael becomes second president of Monmouth College. Throughout his nineteen years at Monmouth, McMichael worked consistently to improve the college. The auditorium, to this day one of the most attractive buildings in Monmouth, was constructed under his guiding hand and he had the trustees build him a house which was often the scene of gay festivities enjoyed by students and faculty. He also added many departments to the college.

1890 – In 1890 Monmouth joined the Western Inter-collegiate Athletic Association which widened her conference relations and stimulated more interest in organized sports on the campus as far as the students were concerned.

1894 – In 1894 the college secured an athletic field of about ten acres on East Broadway and within a few years this area had been developed into a baseball diamond, a football field, and a race track. Tennis courts were soon added and interest in this sport began to develop. At the turn of the century basketball teams for both men and women were developed and physical coeducation was soon firmly established at Monmouth.

Rev. Samuel Ross Lyons, D.D.
Third President of MC 1898-1901

1898 – Monmouth’s third president, the Rev. Samuel Ross Lyons, took up the president’s gavel in June 1898 and laid it down permanently just three years later. This was a very brief administration for a college which has supported only five presidents and their wives in a century of struggle and progress.

Rev. T. H. McMichael, D.D.
Fourth President of MC 1903-1936

1903- There is an old saying at Monmouth that “one McMichael begets another.” This is a reference to the fact that a member of the McMichael family has been connected with the college, in one capacity or another, for three quarters of a century. Thomas Hanna McMichael, son of Jackson Burgess and Mary Hanna McMichael, became the fourth president of Monmouth College in 1903.

Then there was the little episode of the stolen cannon that the senior class of 1903 had planned to give to the college. There must have been young Samsons in the junior class that year. Otherwise it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to load that cannon on a wagon and dump it into Cedar Creek.

1906 – In 1906 Andrew Carnegie offered the college $30,000 for the construction of a library provided the college would match his gift with a $30,000 maintenance fund.

1907 - The new heating plant came too late to prevent the most disastrous fire in the history of the college. One the morning of November 14, 1907, a defective chimney in the attic of Old Main started a fire in the rafters that began to eat its way into the vitals of the building. The fire was discovered when it broke through the ceiling of the biology lecture room on the third floor and the alarm was swiftly carried to the other classes. By the time the firemen arrived the entire roof was burning fiercely. Not only were plans made for a new main classroom building to be named after David Wallace, but the trustees also decided that a science building and a dormitory for women were necessary.

1908 – D. Everett Waid, an architect from New York, selected the plans submitted by Herbert E. Hewitt of Peoria but only after weeks of counseling were all the details decided and it was not until May, 1908 that the contract was signed for the construction of Wallace Hall.

The cornerstone was laid June 10, 1908 and after that the contractor, George B. Davis, pushed the construction as fast as possible.

1909 – On February 8, 1909, the first classes were held in the new hall but only on the first floor as the frescoing was not completed on the second and third floors. So within fifteen months after the disastrous fire had destroyed Old Main the new Wallace Hall was ready for occupancy.

On February 22 the completion of the building was celebrated by class banquets held at noon and a large town and gown dinner given in the dining room in the basement of Wallace Hall during the evening. Meanwhile the new science hall, named in honor of Jackson Burgess McMichael, was being constructed by A. C. Philipson, contractor of Monmouth, who used the blueprints of architects Whitefield and King of New York. The first floor of the science building was designed for the biology department and is still used for that purpose. Laboratories were provided for biology, histology, botany, and zoology. The second floor was arranged for the chemistry department. It contained laboratories for quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, organic and general chemistry. In addition there was a special laboratory, a balance room, a private laboratory, office, library, preparation room, stock room, and lecture room. The basement floor was planned for work in physics and geology but these courses were not developed to any degree of proficiency until years later and during World War I What is now a part of the geology department was used to store potatoes!

1914 – McMichael Hall opened in September, 1914. The cost of this building which provided recreational rooms, an infirmary, and living-quarters for eighty-five girls, was $120,000.

1917 – In 1917 war came once again to Monmouth College. Four hundred students and alumni answered the call “to make the world safe democracy” and to help fight “the ward to end war.” On the home front Monmouth joined the other colleges and universities in a plan to train students for army service.

1918 – Early in 1918 the War Department released the blueprints for establishing Student Army Training Corps (SATC) at the various institutions of higher learning throughout the nation. The purpose of the SATC was to give college men military training while the continued their education in order that they might be prepared for active service when they were called.

1920 - By 1920 the burdens of the president’s office were beginning to tell on McMichael’s physical strength and the Senate suggested that a dean be appointed to help shoulder the increasing responsibilities.

1922 – At first the president did not take kindly to this suggestion but in 1922 he recognized the wisdom of the idea and so the Senate appointed Frank Phillips as the dean of the college in order to relieve the president of “the increasing burden of administrative detail.”

1924-1926 – In 1924 Herbert L. Hart was appointed to the post of Physical Director and Monmouth College entered the first lush years of an era of athletic success. Swimming, boxing, and wrestling were added to the curriculum and in 1925 the baseball and football conference championships were added to the capable Mr. Hart’s belt. The baseball team repeated this feat in 1926. Track men were winning honors, too, especially Jack McIntosh who gained national recognition when he won first place in the All-Around championship meet at the University of Illinois.

1925-1927 – Phillips left Monmouth in 1925 and in 1927 John Scott Cleland joined the Monmouth staff and took over the double duties of the dean’s office.

1926 – The physical education and athletic program for women continued to grow through the first three decades of the twentieth century. The increased activity and interest was displayed in the Girl’s Pep Club which was organized in 1926 and in the Women’s Athletic Association formed at about the same time. The W.A.A. became a chapter of the Athletic Council of American College Women.

1933 – In Monmouth, June 1, 1933, was proclaimed “McMichael Day” by Mayor Earl McKinnon (for all of his accomplishments during a difficult time in history.)

1935 – At the meeting of the Monmouth College Senate in June 1935, Thomas Hanna McMichael indicated that he wished to lay down the gavel at the end of the college year in June 1936. Consequently a special committee was appointed to select a new chief executive for the institution. This was not an easy task and the committee, consisting of Hugh Moffet, Dr. J.K. Sherrick, Dr. Ralph Graham, the Rev. A.W. Jamieson, Hugh T. Martin, and the Rev. James L. Thome, screened many candidates before agreeing on Dr. James Harper Grier who, at the time, was the popular pastor of Second United Presbyterian Church in Monmouth. No one realized more clearly then the president-elect that to step into the office occupied by the energetic McMichael for thirty-three years would take tact, diplomacy, and sagacity.

Rev. J. H. Grier, D.D.
Fifth President of MC 1936-1952

1936 – In 1936, James Harper Grier, pastor, became James Harper Grier, President of Monmouth College, a position that he retained until 1952.

His educational theories rested on scholarship, and the improved tone and higher level of scholarship demanded of teachers and students was one of the most important contributions he made. The Christian atmosphere of the campus was another important contribution of the Grier administration. Sectarianism, although it had theoretically been condemned from the days of David Wallace, cropped up from time to time in the history of the college. All traces of this disappeared after 1936 as President Grier adopted a wholesome tolerant policy with respect to religious beliefs. His goal was to inspire the students with a sense of Christian ethics without causing offense to class or creed.

1937 – The fifth president of the college was inaugurated on October 28, 1937.

1938 – During the next decade Bobby Woll’s famous basketball teams began to click and in 1938 Woll’s Wonders won ten straight victories and the championship of the Midwest Conference.

1940-1941 – In 1940 Woll became Athletic Director and in 1941 he was joined by Glenn E. (Jelly) Robinson who was to assume the direction of the physical education program. Both men have made lasting contributions in their respective fields, although Robinson, as football coach, would have been happier had he been able to point to more Monmouth victories recorded in the annals of the college.

1942 – By 1942 Monmouth had lost nearly every able-bodied man in the student body to the armed service and some of the women had joined the WAVES and still others entered the various war industries. The college was able to make another contribution to the war effort when a Naval Flight Preparatory School was located on campus.

1944 – In 1944, this program was replaced by the Navy Academic Refresher Unit (NARU).

1948 – In 1948 the two functions were separated, Cleland retaining the office of academic dean while Phillips, who returned in 1946, was appointed to the post of dean of men.

The former navy men were joined by discharged veterans from other services and the enrollment at Monmouth topped nine hundred students in 1948.

National prominence was attained in one sport – the girl’s rifle team. Coached by Garrett Thiessen, three girls had placed high in national competition (Hazel Hatch was 1^st in the country in 1948 and 2^nd in 1949; Virginia Stewart placed 6^th in 1952 and 4^th in 1953; and Joan Phifer placed 1^st in 19540; and in April 1954 the team won first place in the National Intercollegiate Women’s Prone Rifle Team Match. This is the only national championship ever won by a Tartan team.

1952 – Dr. Grier, like his predecessor Thomas H. McMichael, was a builder, and of course he worked with David McMichael as business manager on these construction plans. Three modern dormitories were constructed during this period. Two of these structures, Grier Hall and Winbigler Hall, were for women while Fulton Hall was for men. The total evaluation of these three buildings was close to $1,000,000 in 1952.

Rev. Robert W. Gibson, D.D.
Sixth President of MC 1952-1964

1952-1953 - President Robert W. Gibson began his administration on July 1, 1952. The newly elected President Robert W. Gibson brought the (financial) crisis under control, although the signs of trouble persisted (the Senate’s motto for 1957 was PAY AS YOU GO). That leadership was given by Robert W. Gibson, the General Secretary of the Board of Christian Education. A fifty-six year old native of Vermont, graduate of Muskingum College and Xenia Seminary, he had been a successful pastor and administrator. He had particularly sought to make the principles of the United Presbyterian Church effective in its affiliated colleges. And it was this that had attracted the search committee to him. (Having a close tie to the church became a problem in 1953 when the Bishop of the Peoria diocese of the Roman Catholic Church said that if a Catholic enrolled at Monmouth that it was “in defiance of God’s law and would make him unable to receive the sacraments.” This was because Monmouth College was denominational school. The policy decided upon was to ignore the letter and continue on with business as usual. And this was the wisest policy. Twenty-two Roman Catholic students enrolled that fall, and later, at the height of the ecumenical movement inspired by the Vatican II, thanks to Dr. Charles Speel, the relationship with the local church improved to such an extent that the assistant priest was active on campus working with the Roman Catholic students and with the several local Protestant ministers. Eventually Roman Catholic became the largest denominational group on campus.

Necessary to obtaining fiscal stability, however, was a sense of confidence; and Dr. Gibson chose to reinforce this by making some advances that would be immediately visible. His first project along this line was to refurbish those buildings which had grown somewhat seedy with the passage of time. East Hall and McMichael Dormitory were redecorated, and Marshall Hall became a Pan-Hellenic House, where each sorority could have its own meeting room and social center. He began planning for a Student Center, so that Wallace Hall could be used exclusively for academics; and made a search for a new administration building, so that all of Carnegie Hall could be given over to the library, which was literally bursting at the seams with books. By moving the administration offices to the former music building in 1958, he made it possible to provide faculty members with individual offices for the first time. To finance these projects and to build up the endowment, he concentrated more time than any previous president on fund raising; this meant a heavy reliance on academic deans Hugh Beveridge and Harry Manley for the daily operation of the college.

By 1952 the college had passed the years of plenty following World War II. Student enrollment dropped as the G. I. Bill of Rights expired and new calls to battle-stations came with the Korean crisis.

1953 – In 1953 Mademoiselle magazine published the Knapp and Greenbaum report which ranked Monmouth seventh in the production of young women scholars  and seventeenth in male scholars among the nearly one thousand co-educational colleges and universities in the United States, based on the graduates between 1945-1952. And a 1979 study of the class of 1965 shows Monmouth women to be in absolute first place among female graduates of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest in attaining advanced degrees and in employment.

1958 – In January of 1958 pressure to change the chapel requirement resulted in an agonizing compromise-students would be allowed to substitute attendance at a Concert-Lecture performance for days absent from chapel.

The most important development of 1958 was the foundation of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. This grew out of the Midwest Athletic Conference, which was composed of the self-confessed superior colleges of the region of which Monmouth was a member.

1961 – And in 1961 one of the long-time supporters of the college (and probably the richest man in Warren County) resigned from the Senate in disagreement with the decision to build the Student Center before the debt was paid; never did he forgive the college for that decision, but left his considerable fortune to other schools.2

1956-1962 – Between 1956 and 1962, the fifty-nine faculty members wrote six books, published sixty-four articles in professional journals, and presented eighty-three papers at meetings of professional societies. Half held the Ph.D. degree, fifteen more were working toward the degree, and eighty-six grants had been made from the newly founded Faculty Development Fund to assist professors in research and study. In 1963 the Sabbatical Leave program was began.

G. Duncan Wimpress Jr., Ph.D.
Seventh President of MC 1964-1970

1963-1964 – During the 1963-64 year the search for a new president was on in earnest. Many people connected with the college believed that a layman could help the institution reach out to a larger supportive constituency than a clergyman could. The person chosen was Duncan Wimpress who had considerable experience in higher education, having earned a doctoral degree, having taught in college and having served for several years as president of Monticello College. Possessed of a strong drive and a warm personality, Duncan Wimpress was a magnetic figure who attracted attention.

1964 – Elegance was easier to express in the new presidential home, the Quinby House, which was given to the college by Ivory and Betty Quinby in 1964.

The student body had already begun to change in composition during the fifties, when half the states in the Union were represented on campus. Although predominantly from western Illinois, an ever larger percentage of the freshman class came from Chicago and its suburbs. Now, under Duncan Wimpress, a concerted program was made to attract students from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Those states joined in a great metropolitan area which did not have sufficient state colleges for all of the high school graduates who wanted to enter college, and the local Ivy League schools were highly selective in choosing their classes. Consequently, there were many students who were willing to come west to college. This influx of Eastern students helped to boost the enrollment greatly, so the college grew in size annually, going first over 1,000, then 1,100, finally nearing 1,350. 

1965 – While the students came to have more influence on rules and regulations, the United Presbyterian Church came to have less. The faculty discontinued required chapel in 1965; and the Senate replaced the ministers with lay persons as their terms expired. The new Senate members were usually successful businessmen who could offer both expert advice and financial contributions for the expansion of the college. Ties to the Church remained strong, but the national trend was toward secularization. As the first lay President, Duncan Wimpress presided over Monmouth’s entry into the secular era.

1966 – In 1966 the college entered into an agreement with the Department of the Army to use the excess facilities created by a national emergency to house the U.S. Army Finance Center.

1967 – The initial response to President Kennedy’s and President Johnson’s committing more and more American men, material, and money to South Korea’s war effort was reluctant acquiescence: it seemed necessary, perhaps even right. But to a minority of students and a smaller minority of faculty, the war was wrong from the beginning. At the same time the protest movements began to appear on major university campuses, Monmouth College students began to hold silent vigils, quietly evidencing their desire for peace. The first in November of 1967 had thirty students and one faculty member. This demonstration provoked angry feelings in the city.

1968 - The Civil Rights movement had turned into bloody violence in Detroit and Watts; and fear of mob activity had even reached Monmouth, so that civic officials tried to persuade the college not to invite Black speakers to campus for a “Black Power Conference.” The night that Dick Gregory spoke to a packed gymnasium in May of 1968, a rumor swept the community that busloads of black radicals were coming to hear him; it was an atmosphere that affected the controversy surrounding the Vietnamese War. The community reaction was more extreme in 1968 and 1969 as the anti-war protesters marched downtown to hold their silent protests, ringing the square with American-flag-carrying students and faculty.

The model of the future of Monmouth was much on Duncan Wimpress’ mind, especially so after the warning that the college had no clear direction to proceed, and when the American Foundation for Management Research offered to assist the college in planning for the upcoming years, he accepted readily. The firm had been advising businesses on the means to adjust to upcoming needs, and it wanted to know wither its program was applicable to higher education; Monmouth was among the four schools it chose for its services without cost. 

1969 – The first ecology debate was held at this time, as “Earth Day” was declared in the Spring of 1969. Classes stopped to discuss the impending crisis in natural resources, over-population, and population. And if the war had not claimed priority, this would have been the primary issue of the next academic year-as it did later become of great importance in the middle Seventies.

But real trouble was averted until spring, when the Cambodian incursion sparked nation-wide demonstrations and sit-ins; the Kent State massacre occurred and soon almost every college and university in the country was disrupted. Monmouth College was little different; although many classes continued to meet, many did not, and attendance was poor. Student Senate resolutions, a referendum on stopping classes, 400 students listening to speeches in front of Wallace Hall, a mass meeting in the gym, emergency faculty meetings, consultations late into the night characterized the crisis, which was resolved partly by organizing special classes to study the situation, partly by allowing any students who wanted to travel to Washington D.C., to participate in the demonstrations there, and partly by the withdrawal of American troops from Cambodia.

Late 60’s – School spirit reached another climax in the very late Sixties, when total enrollment was nearly 1350.

1970 – In January of 1970 the library was ready to occupy, but the books were still two blocks away in the Carnegie Library. The problem of transporting the 100,000 volumes was long debated, but at last librarian Harris Hauge decided that the students and faculty could move them, and he devised a color-code system so that, as each armload of books was transported down the hill, it would be delivered to the correct section of the new library. The temperature was -20° F that morning on the move! But it was sunny and windless, and hundreds of students presented themselves for work throughout the day. The old Carnegie Library became the home of the Scots Supply Bookstore, the student deans, the Oracle, the history and government departments, and a practice room for speech and drama.

The most important new building, however was the science center. While the humanities and social sciences had been hard-pressed by the increase in enrollment, those disciplines were more flexible in their use of classrooms and offices than were the scientists, who had to provide laboratory space and equipment for each student. Science at Monmouth College was not theoretical-it was practical, in-the-lab experience, under the personal direction of the senior professors. It was exactly this that had made Monmouth’s program famous; and it was this that made the need for a new building all the more pressing.

By early 1970 many faculty members had become persuaded that the war was wrong, that the United States should leave Vietnam; and that Vietnam should be left to its fate whatever it was; the students were even stronger in their expression – Stop signs in the campus area were decorated with an extra word to read “Stop War” – and, more slowly, the citizens of Monmouth reached the same conclusion.

Richard Dengler Stine, Ph.D.
Eighth President of MC 1970-1974

1970-1971 – And 1970-1971 was, indeed, a calmer year.  When President Nixon ended the draft, he removed the major cause of unhappiness on the campus, but he also removed one reason for young men to attend college; consequently, college enrollment declined slightly the next fall and even more drastically the fall after that.

President Stine was not responsible for the financial problems facing the college in the fall of 1970. He was faced during the 1970-71 year with the unhappy prospect of having to release about twenty percent of the faculty unless the downward trend in student enrollment could be arrested and reserved. He did not, during his tenure as president, increase the college’s indebtedness; he reduced it somewhat. Unfortunately for “Dick” Stine, as he asked to be called, between the spring in which Duncan Wimpress resigned and the fall in which he himself took office, the country suffered the first of a series of economic shocks. Accompanying this ever deeper recession was the end of the post-war baby boom, so that suddenly there were fewer high school graduates than there were openings in colleges and universities, and the introduction of a lottery drawing for Selective Service. By June it was clear that a serious crisis lay ahead: the admissions director had resigned and the business manager was worried about obtaining credit to pay the $700,000 owed on the new science building. Every effort was made to reassure the college community and its friends that while the crisis was serious enough to require readjustment and rededication, it was not so serious as to cause worry about the survival of the college. Moreover, he was fortunate in being president when the munificent gift from the Hewes family was received and applied to the cost of the new library, now the Hewes library. So that the faculty and Senate might plan for the future, President Stine brought eight nationally-known speakers on campus to discuss the trends of modern education. Those eight lectures comprised the series Rendezvous for Renewal and were later printed as the book Prospects for Renewal. They were to serve as a springboard for discussions which would lead to a complete revision of the academic program. 

1971-1972 – President Stine emphasized that the Senate required a balance budget for the 1971-72 year and dramatized the national crisis of higher education.

1972 – A number of students were pressing for the introduction of co-ed dorms and resisting the requirement that parental permission be obtained before a student be assigned such a dorm. The practical problem was the number and construction of dormitories on campus. It was easy to convert Gibson Hall into a co-ed dormitory, because all doors opened to the outside and there were many bathrooms; similarly, Liedman and Cleland Halls could be made into co-ed areas; but Winbigler and McMichael Halls presented difficulties. 

1973 -  At the October 1973 Senate meeting, Dr. Stine made his report, and it ended with these words:

Every end must have a beginning and every beginning an end. Man is finite and so is his service to other men and to the institutions created by men. This principle applies to the relationship between Monmouth College and whoever at any time may be privileged to serve as its president.

The shock came from this statement reverberated through the campus, the timing coming as a complete surprise to everyone. The chairman of the Senate, Lee Morgan, said that he had not anticipated the resignation, furthermore, that “Dr. Stine had served Monmouth College during an especially challenging era, and that very real accomplishments in the areas of admissions, finances, and programs have occurred during his administration. We are grateful for all that he has done and wish him well in his future responsibilities.”

DeBow Freed, Ph.D.
Ninth President of MC 1974-1979

1974 – The trying circumstances which brought about the resignation of President Stine alerted the college’s several supporting groups to look for a new president who would not only be an active fund raiser but more especially would be a leader who could so deal with the campus student life as to reduce the permissiveness and the drinking that seemed to be contributing to decreasing freshman enrollments and a rather high attrition rate. The college also needed a president who could help to restore Monmouth College to good standing in the Midwest Athletic Conference, improve Monmouth’s somewhat lowered academic image among the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, increase student retention, and restore a positive and hopeful attitude for the college among the senators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, community people and church people. This was a very considerable expectation and a choice had to be made without undue delay. The person selected was Dr. DeBow Freed, who had been serving as the academic dean at Mt. Union College in Alliance, Ohio. DeBow Freed was an active churchman and a soft spoken but articulate speaker. He had a reputation as an untiring worker who lived a life of quiet self-discipline. 

1978 – One external perception of the college in this period is found in the report of the 1978 North Central Association Evaluation team. Their oral report stressed the unusual harmony and unity found on the campus, the cooperation of departments, the genuine participation by faculty and students in the college governance, and by the friendliness met everywhere. While there were suggestions about defining institutional goals more specifically and creating more excitement and rigor in the teaching program, there were also statements to the effect that conditions on campus were in fact far better than the normal state of affairs at many other colleges. The North Central Association continued the college’s accreditation for ten years, the maximum term, without qualification. Such an endorsement by an accrediting association had become increasingly rare as colleges and universities had encountered varying difficulties in the years of expansion and contraction of higher education. The judgment was made, according to the evaluation team report, because of the strength of the administration, financial stability, more than adequate physical plant, and a well-trained and dedicated faculty that participate effectively in decision making.

WHAT COLLEGE WAS MEANT TO BE

Founded in 1853, Monmouth College is a nationally-ranked liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Located in western Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis, Monmouth has an enrollment of 1,350 students, most of whom live on campus in eleven attractive residence halls and a modern apartment complex.

Monmouth's faculty devotes its full attention to undergraduate teaching. A new general-education based curriculum, designed to better prepare students for the challenges of living and working in the 21st century, was recently adopted.