Centrepiece Online | Fall 2010

The Making of a History of Centre College

by Beau Weston, Van Winkle Professor of Sociology

Centre College is a college. It is composed of scholars and produces scholars. This has always been one of Centre’s stated aims, and today the College is probably more scholarly in its faculty and its students than it ever has been before. Centre College honors the academic achievements of its students today above all else. However, over the long history of Centre College, and taking all the students together, it is probably fair to say that scholarship has taken third place. At least, that is, until recently.

Centre College was made to be a Christian college. From its founding Centre aimed to foster Christian character, without proselytizing for a particular sect. Centre is a ministry of the Presbyterian Church to educate people of all denominations. For 150 years this aspect of the College was called “pre-eminent.” The College proudly noted the Christian service of its students and honored the loyal church members among its alumni. Centre has produced a disproportionate number of church leaders, especially for the Presbyterian Church. Over the long history of Centre College, Christian service has been, in my judgment, the second main purpose of the College. Today, though, the Christian mission of Centre is clearly not pre-eminent, and some question whether the College has—or ought to have—a Christian mission at all.

Centre College has long been a gentleman’s college. No goal has been more pervasive in the College’s history, or harder to define. Centre has always aimed to produce men of broad culture who would serve others. For nearly half its history the College has had women as students—and a parallel aim for them. Centre has paid the most honor, and most consistent honor, to its gentlemen and ladies who have gone on to distinguished service in public life. The genteel ideal has proven to be the most attractive vision to the broadest range of Centre’s several constituencies. The ideal of the gentleman and the lady is broadly appealing in its own right. It also makes a good central ideal for Centre College because it overlaps with the scholarly and Christian ideals. The gentleman, and lady, take the first place, the central place, in Centre’s mission. The language of “gentlemen and ladies” is not used as often at the College now, but something of the ideal remains.

A promotional pamphlet distributed by Centre in 1901 asked the question “Why Should I Go to College?” The number one reason that Centre gave in answer is more telling than anything else: “It means meeting men worth knowing.” The same pamphlet describes the aims of Centre College in the clear language of the gentlemanly ideal: “The Centre College has two clearly defined aims: to prepare men for useful, honorable life, by the culture of intellect and character; and to prepare men for special callings.”

When the professors at Centre were not laboring to safeguard the morals of their students, they were busy training the same young men to be effective civic leaders. Although Centre did train many of its graduates for the ministry, the majority of graduates went on to practice other professions, especially law. As late as 1940, the College produced a booklet about the effects of a Centre education, contending that “Centre has never trained its students to be underlings, hired men . . . from the beginning Centre’s high standards of scholarship and character have offered distinctive preparation for public life . . . its training has produced Vice Presidents of the United States, cabinet members, diplomats, senators, representatives, governors, [and] great lawyers.” Law was the gentleman’s profession, and achieving political prominence was a way of proving one’s social status. The classical curriculum embraced by most Southern colleges, including Centre, had less to do with career training than it did with creating public men. Daily recitations of memorized classic texts and college-supported literary societies were all aimed at encouraging and cultivating the next generation of gentlemen lawyers and political figures.

After the First World War the undisputed primacy of the genteel ideal diminished, at Centre as at other Southern colleges. The classical curriculum was replaced by more useful, career-oriented courses. The literary societies were beginning to disintegrate. Even the strict rules of the student deportment were relaxed. Still, the ideal of useful public service remained.

The New Curriculum of 1967 announced “basic premises” that partially broke with the honored tradition of Christian gentility: “The liberal arts curriculum has been traditionally characterized by a rich pursuit of knowledge; but its more fundamental concern is for the development of the habits and qualities of mind which distinguish the liberated man from the man whose responses are based largely upon tradition and emotion.” In a different form, the spirit of Christian gentility lives on at Centre today.

Katherine Nichols, the dean of women at Kentucky College for Women, as the women’s department was commonly called, and later at the fully coeducational Centre College, further illuminated K.C.W.’s emphasis on training young women to become ladies. According to Dean Nichols, the women at K.C.W. were expected to conduct themselves as ladies at all times. They did not have locks on the doors to their dorm rooms, there were strict curfews, they were required to be “dressed” for dinner, they abided by a strict honor code, always wore skirts or dresses to class, and many of them taught Sunday school at the Second Presbyterian church. Mrs. Nichols always told the girls, “Act like you dress.” It was understood that impeccable manners were a tradition of the College. Any girl who became pregnant was immediately sent home. She spoke regularly of herself acting as a role model for the students. “The trend,” she said, “in women’s colleges at the time was to be ladylike.”

After the women moved to the main Centre campus in 1962, the young women’s daily lifestyles became more akin to those of the young men, and their histories were inevitably entwined. Still, to this day the echo of the genteel ideal of public service remains for Centre women, as it does for Centre men.

Centre’s “Colonel” is an apt symbol of the College’s central commitment to the genteel ideal. The nickname seems to have been adopted by the College officially in the 1910s. It refers back to a custom initiated by Centre’s first board chair and Kentucky’s first governor, Isaac Shelby, who designated his chief of staff, and later his honor guard, “Kentucky Colonels.” The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels was formalized in 1932 by Governor Ruby Laffoon, but the honorific was widely recognized before that time. The image of the colonel seems to have been adopted by the College in the 1930s. Football programs of this era show a realistic colonel in a three-piece suit. Recently, he has been depicted as a stylized cartoon character with an exaggerated head, a white man with longish white hair, a white goatee, a white linen suit and matching hat, with a dark bow tie. The “colonel” called to mind the ideal of the southern gentleman, with a further suggestion of public (military) service, perfectly embodied by General Robert E. Lee. This vision fit well with the Centre ethos. Today he calls to mind Colonel Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, who was, of course, trading on the prior image of Lee and the southern gentleman.

The “Praying Colonels,” the nickname specifically given to the championship football teams of the early 1920s, suggests a compromise between the Christian and the genteel elements competing for the heart of Centre College. This reading is reinforced by the fact that “praying” was added to “colonels” at the precise moment that Centre was re-establishing its church connection. The scholarly ideal was still in third place: the teams were never called the “Studying Colonels,” the “Thinking Colonels,” or the “Egghead Colonels.”

These three ideals—the scholar, the gentleman (and lady), and the Christian—have always been part of Centre. They vie with one another for the heart of the College. They differ in strength from era to era. But all three remain part of Centre’s character today, and, barring a revolution, all three are likely to remain part of Centre’s character in the future. And Centre prizes tradition over revolution.