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Top Centre and national stories of 2005
RELEASED: Jan. 19, 2006
DANVILLE, KY—The year 2005 may one day be remembered as a watershed year for Centre College, a year that boasted a record-breaking freshman class and the move of the campus bookstore to the Hub building downtown. But no event had as much impact as the opening of The College Centre.
The opening of The College Centre, a state-of-the-art academic/athletic complex, was ranked top campus story in a recent poll of Centre students, faculty and staff, who were asked to select the three biggest Centre and national stories of 2005.
The number-two story was the announcement of a new residence hall, to be called Pearl Hall, to be built on campus through a gift from Centre trustee Robert Brockman '63. The opening convo with speaker Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize-winner and holocaust survivor, came in third in the voting by a very narrow margin. Students were awed to see a speaker of Wiesel's stature speak at the beginning of the 2005-06 academic year.
"I think he's such a substantial figure who speaks from the heart," said Will Rall, a sophomore from Murray, Ky. "His speech was inspirational and riveting; it was a very appropriate way to begin the year."
"It really says something about this school that we invited someone so brilliant and strong to be here, and that he accepted the offer," said Clayton Carden, a freshman from Utica, Ky. Carden has become something of a celebrity himself as one of six students documenting their freshman year on Centre's new Web journal My CENTRE Life: The Freshman Year.
On the larger scene, it's no surprise that Hurricane Katrina was picked as the top national news story. The Centre community played its own part by collecting money and supplies to send to victims on the Gulf Coast, by taking in three students displaced when their colleges were evacuated (click here for story), and with a CentreTerm service trip to New Orleans where President Roush and 17 freshmen worked for a week with the Salvation Army (click here for story).
The second-place national news story was the war in Iraq, and coming in third were the vacancies on the Supreme Court and the subsequent nominations to fill those positions by the Bush administration.
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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/
For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.
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