 | |
| Motto | Lex, Rex—Crux, Rex |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Active | March 3, 1873–July 16, 1901 |
Religious affiliation | Southern Synod of the Presbyterian Church |
| Location | , , United States |
| Successor | Centre College |
| Colors | Cream and Crimson |
The Central University of Kentucky was a former American private college that was associated with the Southern Synod of the Presbyterian Church. It opened in Richmond, Kentucky in 1874. The university consolidated with Centre College in Danville, Kentucky in 1901.
The Southern Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky established The Central University of Kentucky in Richmond, Kentucky. [1] [2] Central University was created an alternative and rival to Centre College which was established by the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky before the Civil War and was operated by the Northern Synod after the determination of a federal court case in 1871. [2] [1] The Kentucky Legislature chartered Central University on March 3, 1873. [3]
The university opened with 224 students on September 22, 1874. [3] Robert Levi Breck was Central University's first chancellor, serving from 1874 to 1880. [1] He was replaced by Lindsay Hughes Blanton who was chancellor until the university merged. [3] Initially, the university was managed by a Board of Curators who were appointed by the Alumni Association of Centre College, established by the Southern Synod in 1872. [3] [4] In 1884, the Southern Synod started to provide financial support and took on control of the board. [3]
This support was needed because the university's enrollment dropped yearly with its largest class of only 25 graduates. [1] The university had commitments for an endowment of $220,000, contributed by people from Richmond and Madison County, Kentucky and Centre College alumni who supported the Southern Synod. [2] [1] [3] However, many of these pledges were unfulfilled because of the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893. [3] In the 1880s, the university admitted female students, hoping to increase enrollment. [3] It also reduced its faculty and cut their salaries. [1]
Beset with financial difficulties and small enrollment, the university consolidated with Centre College in Danville, Kentucky on July 16, 1901. [2] [1] The merged institution was called Central University of Kentucky and was located in Danville on the Centre Colleges' campus. [1]
The primary campus of Central University consisted of 40 acres in Richmond, Kentucky. [5] Its first and main building, was the three-story University Building, was built in 1874 from bricks made on site. [2] [1] It was constructed in the Italianate style and featured a portico with four two-story Corinthian columns. [2] By 1901, this campus included eight buildings, including Miller Gymnasium. [2]
Walters Collegiate Institute, a boys' preparatory school, used the former university campus for five years. [5] In 1906, the Kentucky Normal School Commission selected the former Central University campus as the location for the new Eastern Kentucky State Normal School, now called Eastern Kentucky University. [5]
Central University initially included a College of Law; the College of Philosophy, Letters, and Science; and the Richmond Preparatory School in Richmond, as well as the Hospital College of Medicine in Louisville. [2] [1] In 1886, the university sold a franchise to dental educators who created the Louisville College of Dentistry in Louisville in 1887. [6] The university associated with additional preparatory schools, including, the S. P. Lees Collegiate Institute in Jackson in 1890, the Middlesboro Collegiate Institute in Middlesboro in 1892, and Hardin Collegiate Institute in Elizabethtown in 1896. [1] [3]
Degrees offered included Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Letters, Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Letters, and Doctor of Medicine. [7] Undergraduate majors for the 1890–91 academic year included the Bible and Christian Evidences, Chemistry, Commercial Science, English Language and Literature, Geology, Greek, History and Political Science, Latin, Mathematics and Astronomy, Modern Languages (French and German), Philosophy, Physics, and Physiology. [8] Course offering also included botany, bookkeeping, civil engineering, geography, psychology, and zoology. [9] In 1990, the university had 176 students in the College of Philosophy, Letters, and Science; 153 students in the Hospital College of Medicine, and 85 students in the Louisville College of Dentistry. [7]
Central University published the Cream and Crimson yearbook, The Central News newspaper, and The Atlantis literary magazine. [2] [4] [10] The Richmond campus had chapters of several fraternities, including Delta Kappa Epsilon (1884), Phi Delta Theta (1884), Sigma Alpha Epsilon (1882), Sigma Nu (1883), and Theta Nu Epsilon (1898). [11] [2] [12] The university's Cotillion Club and the fraternities sponsored dances. [2] It had two literary societies, the Epiphyllidian and the Philalethean, that sponsored oratory and debating contests and had a library. [4] [2] There was also a YMCA and a Central College Battalion. [2] [4]
The College of Medicine had a chapter of Phi Chi, established in 1898. [12] Its College of Dentistry had a chapter of Psi Omega, founded in 1897. [12]
Central University's athletic colors were cream and crimson. [2] During the 1890s, its students played football against Centre College, Georgetown College, Sewanee: The University of the South, Transylvania University, the University of Kentucky, Vanderbilt University, and Washington University in St. Louis. [2] The university's other sports were baseball, bicycling, and tennis. [2]
Centre College, formally Centre College of Kentucky, is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, United States. Chartered by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1819, the college is a member of the Associated Colleges of the South and the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities. It has an enrollment of about 1,400 students.
Tau Epsilon Phi (ΤΕΦ), commonly known as TEP or T E Phi, is an American collegiate social fraternity that was founded at Columbia University in 1910. Since its establishment, the fraternity has chartered 144 chapters and colonies, chiefly located at universities and colleges on the East Coast. Its national headquarters is located in Troy, New York. Although originally a Jewish fraternity, TEP opened to non-Jewish members in the 1960s.
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Thomas Arthur Spragens was an American administrator who was the 17th president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Spragens worked for the state and federal government early in his career, before joining the staff at Stanford University as a presidential advisor. He was the president of Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, for a five-year term, and left Stephens to go to Centre in 1957.
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, also referred to as Louisville Seminary, is a seminary affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and located in Louisville, Kentucky. It is one of ten PC (USA) seminaries and it identifies as an ecumenical seminary, with recent student enrollment representing many faith traditions.
The 1921 Centre vs. Harvard football game was a regular-season collegiate American football game played on October 29, 1921, at Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts. The contest featured the undefeated Centre Praying Colonels, representing Centre College, and the undefeated Harvard Crimson, representing Harvard University. Centre won the game 6–0, despite entering as heavy underdogs, and the game is widely viewed as one of the largest upsets in college football history. The game is often referred to by the shorthand C6H0, after a Centre professor's remark that Harvard had been poisoned by this "impossible" chemical formula.
Middlesboro High School is a public high school in Middlesboro, Kentucky, United States one of three schools operated by Middlesboro Independent Schools
Delta Sigma Epsilon (ΔΣΕ) was a national collegiate social sorority founded at Miami University, operating in the United States from 1914 to 1956. It was originally a member of the Association of Education Sororities (AES) before the AES's merger with the National Panhellenic Conference, and most of its chapters were located at teaching colleges. The sorority was absorbed by Delta Zeta sorority on August 21, 1956.
Frederick William Hinitt was an American Presbyterian pastor and academic administrator who was president of Parsons College, Central University of Kentucky, and Washington & Jefferson College for various periods between 1900 and 1918. He was educated at Westminster College, McCormick Theological Seminary, and the University of Wooster, and he began his career in the ministry at Presbyterian churches in Warrensburg, Missouri, and Ottumwa, Iowa. Already a member of the board of trustees of Parsons College, in Fairfield, Iowa, he was elected president of that school in July 1900. In spite of a fire that destroyed one of the school's few buildings, a new women's dormitory was constructed and funds were raised to build a Carnegie library.
William Arthur Ganfield was an American pastor, educator, and academic administrator who was president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, from 1915 to 1921 and then of Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, from 1921 until his retirement in 1939.
Washington & Jefferson College is host to 8 Greek organizations and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life. With 43% of women and 40% of men of the student body participating in "greek life," fraternities and sororities play a significant role in student life at W&J. The Princeton Review named Washington & Jefferson College 12th on their 2010 list of "Major Frat and Sorority Scene" in the United States. As of 2024, the Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life recognized 4 fraternities, Alpha Tau Omega, Beta Theta Pi, Delta Tau Delta, and Phi Kappa Psi, and 4 sororities, Delta Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Pi Beta Phi. The fraternities are governed by a local Interfraternal Council and the sororities are governed by a local Panhellenic Council, while the Greek Judiciary manages broad policy violations at the chapter-level. All Greek organizations occupy College-owned houses on Chestnut Street on campus. All members of fraternities and sororities must pay the $100 "Greek Membership Fee," a levy designed to fund leadership seminars and other educational events for Greeks.
Edward William Cornelius Humphrey, also known as "Alphabet Humphrey" and "Judge Humphrey", was a theological and legal scholar and influential member of the National Presbyterian General Assembly. A Harvard graduate with an honorary degree from Amherst, he was also an 1864 graduate of Centre College, of which he became a trustee in 1885. He was a trustee of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and for forty-four successive terms was elected Director of the Louisville Law Library Company. He was a key figure in a long discussion and eventual acceptance of a Presbyterian creed revision held in May 1902 in New York City by the national Presbyterian General Assembly.
The 1893 Central Colonels football team represented Central University in Richmond, Kentucky during the 1893 college football season.
Beta Sigma Omicron (ΒΣΟ) is a defunct American collegiate sorority. It was founded on December 12, 1888, at the University of Missouri and merged with Zeta Tau Alpha on August 7, 1964.
Ormond Beatty was an American educator and academic administrator. He was the seventh president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. An 1835 graduate of Centre, Beatty became a professor the following year and taught chemistry, natural philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, biblical history, and church history over the course of his career. He was selected to fill the position of president pro tempore following the resignation of William L. Breckinridge in 1868 and was unanimously elected president by the board of trustees in 1870. He was Centre's first president who was not a Christian minister, and he led the school until his resignation in 1888, at which point he taught for two additional years before his death in 1890. Beatty also involved himself in religious affairs, serving as a ruling elder in the First and Second Presbyterian Churches in Danville, as a commissioner to three Presbyterian Church General Assemblies, and as a trustee of the Danville Theological Seminary.
William Charles Roberts was an American pastor and academic administrator. A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, he began his ministerial career at a Presbyterian church in Wilmington, Delaware. He spent nearly two years pastoring in Columbus, Ohio, before his wife developed an illness and the couple were advised to return to her home state of New Jersey, where Roberts continued preaching. He led churches in Elizabeth, New Jersey, for the following eighteen years before a four-year stint with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) Board of Home Missions. He then was elected president of Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, where he stayed for six years. During this period, he was elected moderator of the PCUSA General Assembly. After six more years working for the PCUSA, Roberts accepted the presidency of Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, in 1898. He spent five years leading Centre before dying in office in November 1903; he presided over Centre's 1901 merger with Central University in Richmond, Kentucky, and finished his term as president of the consolidated Central University of Kentucky.
Kentucky College for Women, also known as Caldwell College, was a non-profit private women's college and preparatory school in Danville, Kentucky. It opened as the Caldwell Institutefor Young Ladies in 1860. It merged with Centre College in 1930.