Berea College

History

Founded in 1855 by the abolitionist and Augusta College graduate John Gregg Fee (1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college in the South and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays on land that was granted to Fee by politician and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay. Fee named the new community after the biblical Berea. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, slavery supporters forced Fee and the teachers out of the area that year.

Fee spent the Civil War years raising funds for the school, trying to provide for his family in Cincinnati, and working at Camp Nelson. He returned afterward to continue his work at Berea. He spent nearly 18 months working mostly at Camp Nelson, where he helped provide facilities for the freedmen and their families, as well as teaching and preaching. He helped get funds for barracks, a hospital, a school, and a church.

In 1866, Berea's first full year after the war, it had 187 students, 96 Black and 91 white. It began with preparatory classes to ready students for study at the college level. In 1869, the first college students were admitted, and the first bachelor's degrees were awarded in 1873. Almost all the South's private and state colleges were racially segregated. Berea was the main exception until a new state law in 1904 forced its segregation. The college challenged the law in state court and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Berea College v. Kentucky. When the challenge failed, the college had to become an all-white school, but it raised funds to establish the Lincoln Institute in 1912 in Simpsonville, Kentucky, to educate Black students. In 1950, when the Day Law was amended to allow integration of schools at the college level, Berea resumed its integrated policies.

In 1911, the college restricted students to eating at college-owned facilities. A local businessman sued but the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the college's restriction was legal (Gott v. Berea College).

In 1925, advertiser Bruce Barton, a future congressman, sent a letter to 24 wealthy men in America to raise funds for the college. Every letter was returned with a minimum of $1,000 in donation. During World War II, Berea was one of 131 colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a navy commission.

Presidents

Presidents of the college have included:

Academics

Berea College offers 33 majors and 39 minors from which its 1,600 students can choose. Students who wish to pursue a field of study that cannot be met through an established major may propose an independent major, provided they meet the criteria in the college catalog's definition of a major. The student must secure independent major advisers (primary and secondary). Its most popular majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:

Business Administration and Management (30)

Computer and Information Sciences (28)

Biology/Biological Sciences (21)

Psychology (20)

Human Development and Family Studies (19)

Mass Communication/Media Studies (16)

Engineering Technologies/Technicians (14)

Political Science and Government (14)

To ensure every student has access to fully experience a liberal arts education, the college provides significant funding to assist students in studying abroad. Berea students are also eligible for the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides funding for a year of study abroad after graduation.

All students are required to attend the college on a full-time basis. They are also required to attend at least six convocation events each semester and receive academic credit. The convocations are designed as a supplement to the curriculum by encouraging educational experience and cultural enrichment. Topics range across academic fields and include lectures, symposia, concerts, and the performing arts. These events are free to Berea College students and open to the public.

Rankings and outcomes

In 2024, Washington Monthly ranked Berea College first in the U.S. among national liberal arts colleges based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. The New York Times also ranked Berea first in its 2023 College Access Index based on economic diversity. The 2025 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes Berea as "more selective" and rates it 40th overall, first in "Service Learning," second for "Most Innovative Schools," tied for 9th in "Best Undergraduate Teaching", and fifth in "Top Performers in Social Mobility" among U.S. liberal colleges. Kiplinger's Personal Finance placed Berea 35th in its 2019 ranking of 149 best-value U.S. liberal arts colleges.

According to 2022 data from College Scorecard, Berea College graduates earn a median salary of $40,000 ten years after their entry into the institution. Mathematics majors earn around $18,000, biology $29,000, psychology $35,000, and nursing $57,000. 51% of Berea graduates earn higher than a typical high school graduate of the corresponding area.

Scholarships and work program

About 75% of the college's incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas, and about 8% are international students. Generally, no more than one student is admitted from a given country in a single year. This policy ensures that 70 or more nationalities are usually represented in the student body of Berea College. All international students are admitted on full scholarships with the same regard for financial need as U.S. students.

Beginning in the fall semester of 2027, Berea College will meet all demonstrated financial need of admitted students, without requiring loans. To support its extensive scholarship program, Berea College has one of the largest financial reserves of any American college when measured on a per-student basis. The endowment was $1.6 billion as of June 30, 2021. The base of Berea College's finances is dependent on substantial contributions from alumni and from individuals, foundations, and corporations that support the mission of the college. The endowment increased from $150 million (~$370 million in 2024) in 1985.

In 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted an excise tax of 1.4% of endowment incomes that exceed net assets of at least $500,000 per student. Due to the size of Berea's endowment and number of full-time enrolled students, this tax bill would have reduced the number of students it could serve. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 provided an exemption for colleges and universities with fewer than 500 tuition-paying students, making Berea College exempt as it provides tuition-free education to all students.

As a work college, Berea has a student work program in which all students work on campus 10 or more hours per week. Berea is one of nine federally recognized work colleges in the United States and one of two in Kentucky (Alice Lloyd College being the other) to have mandatory work study programs. Employment opportunities range from busing tables at the Boone Tavern Hotel, a historic business owned by the college, to leading campus tours for visitors and prospective students, or making brooms, ceramics and woven items in Student Craft. Other job duties include campus photographer, building management, resident assistant, teaching assistant, food service, gardening and grounds keeping, information technology, woodworking, and secretarial work.

As of 2022, students were paid an hourly wage from $5.60 to $8.60 by the college, based on the WLS ("Work, Learning, and Service") level attached to individual labor positions. The college regularly increases student pay on a yearly basis, but it has never been equivalent to the federal minimum wage in the school's history. Because of the scheduling demands of both an academic requirement and a labor requirement, students are not allowed to work at off-campus jobs.

Folk dance

Berea is widely known as a folk dance hub, teaching square, contra, English, and other kinds of movement. The college offers community folk dances most weekends. The campus has ten dance groups (including Middle Eastern, Swing, Latino, African, and hip hop), a minor in dance, and 25 dance classes.

Physical education instructor Oscar Gunkler brought folk dance to Berea in the 1920s. The Berea College Country Dancers were founded in 1938 by Frank Smith. Berea's annual Christmas Country Dance School was started the same year by Smith and May Gadd, the first director of the Country Dance and Song Society.

Berea's Country Dancers go on tour each semester and danced at the White House in 1963. In 1970, Raymond Kane McLain of The McLain Family Band joined the faculty. He directed the Country Dancers, taught Appalachian music and dance courses, and offered the first bluegrass music course in the United States. Dance programs were established as part of the college's Health and Human Performance Department in 1995 by Susan Spalding. International dance caller and writer Bob Dalsemer is one of many who got his start at a Berea dance.

Christian identity

Berea was founded by Protestant Christians. It maintains a Christian identity separate from any particular denomination. The college's motto, "God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth", is from Acts 17:26. In an effort to be sensitive to the diverse preferences and experiences of students and faculty, courses are designed to be taught with respect for each student's spiritual journey, regardless of religious identification.

Library collections

The Hutchins Library maintains an extensive collection of books, archives, and music pertaining to Southern Appalachian history and culture. The Southern Appalachian Archives contain organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs, including the papers of the Council of the Southern Mountains (1912–1989) and the Appalachian Volunteers (1963–1970).

Student life

Since 2002, all students at Berea have received laptops that they keep upon graduation. Students are not required to pay for the computers, but do provide a small fee to support the technological infrastructure. Students must have a parking decal to have a car on campus.

Since 1875, Berea College celebrates Mountain Day, a holiday set aside to enjoy being together in nature. Students take off from classes for a sunrise hike to the top of the Pinnacle Mountain and engage in games, performances, food, and other festivities. Another unique holiday to Berea College is Labor Day, where the campus takes a break from classes to recognize and celebrate the value of student work. Established in 1921, it has expanded to help students find labor placements for the following academic year and soon-to-be graduates prepare for life after college.

Athletics

The Berea athletic teams are called the Mountaineers. The college is a member of Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and joined the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) in July 2024 after two years in the Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS). They were also a member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA). The Mountaineers previously competed in the USA South Athletic Conference (USA South) from 2017–18 to 2021–22; as an NCAA D-III Independent from 2014–15 to 2016–17; and in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC; now currently known as the River States Conference (RSC) since the 2016–17 school year) of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 1916–17 to 2013–14.

Berea competes in 14 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball.

Move to NCAA Division III

On February 20, 2012, the NCAA announced it had granted Berea permission to begin a one-year period exploring membership in its Division III, non-scholarship athletic program.

On May 4, 2016, the USA South announced that Berea would join the league effective in the 2017–18 school year.

Joining the CCS

The USA South announced in February 2022 that it would split into two leagues the following July, with eight of its then 19 members, including Berea, establishing the new Collegiate Conference of the South.

Move to the HCAC

On June 1, 2023, Berea and the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference announced that the Mountaineers would join that league after the 2023–24 school year.

Men's basketball

On February 4, 1954, Irvine Shanks played for Berea against Wilmington College, breaking the color barrier in college basketball in Kentucky.

Notable alumni and faculty

Daniel S. Bentley (1850–1916), American minister, writer, newspaper founder

A. A. Burleigh (c. 1845–1938) American minister, soldier; the first African American adult to attend and graduate in 1875 from Berea College

John "Bam" Carney – educator; member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from Campbellsville

Dean W. Colvard – former president of Mississippi State University, notable for his role in a 1963 controversy surrounding the participation of the university's basketball team in the NCAA Tournament

Frances Berry Coston (1876–1960), journalist, suffragist, educator

John Courter – educator; an American composer, organist, and carillonneur, considered one of the leading contemporary composers for the carillon

Anna Ernberg (1874–1940) – Superintendent of Fireside Industries and key figure in the Appalachian Craft Revival

John Fenn – recipient of 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Despite his future success, Fenn always felt that he was limited by the lack of meaningful math education in his undergrad years

Finley Hamilton – United States Representative from Kentucky

Alix E. Harrow — science fiction writer and winner of a 2019 Hugo Award

James Shelton Hathaway (1859–1930) newspaper publisher educator, academic administrator, college president and former classics and mathematics faculty at Berea College