Susquehanna University, 1858-2000of Women

Susquehanna University’s history from 1858-2000 has occurred in three states, each expressing a different mission. The school was funded in 1858 as the Missionary Institute of the Evangelical Lutheran Church to fulfill the vision of the Rev. Benjamin Kurtz, a Lutheran cleric and editor of the Lutheran Observer. He was a partisan of the American Lutheran viewpoint caught up in a fratricidal battle with Lutheran orthodoxy. The Missionary Institute sustained his viewpoint in the preparation, gratis, of men called to preach the gospel in foreign and home missions. A complementary purpose was to educate young people in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania at both the Institute and its sister school, the Susquehanna Female College. When the Female College folded in 1873, the Institute became coeducational.

Various factors caused Susquehanna University to metamorphose from the Institute in 1895. IT was a protean institution with academic programs reaching from high school to the doctorate. In the first decades of the twentieth century the academic program narrowed until the focus was on the liberal arts with an emphasis on music and business. Regardless of its academic program, Susquehanna was a Christian college whose prime purpose was to instill Christian character in its students. In the mide-1960s a revolt by students eliminated this mission and the school purely on educational goals-the intellectual and personal maturation of young people.

Few scholars have attempted to demonstrate the means by which representations both reflect and transform the lives of historical actors. This study offers a rare opportunity to glimpse that intersection as the Causes célèbres contain representations and lived experience, fact and fiction.

Although this book documents many institutional "firsts" and includes many salient events making up the school’s history, the book has a thesis: the institution has successively adapted its mission or fundamental purpose to meet the changing needs of its market. This adaptation has occurred as decision-makers and stakeholders at the school responded to external factors and forces affecting both religion and education in America.

For over a century, the chief context for the college was broadly religious and narrowly Lutheran. Social and cultural symbiosis defined the relationship between the Church and college when a type of Protestant hegemony dominated American life, a time when most young people did not attend college. A facet of the revolutionary character of the 1960s was the demise of Protestant dominance in American society and a concomitant decline of mainline Protestant churches, including the Lutheran Church. Meanwhile, social and economic realities made a college education increasingly important and higher education grew.

In the 1960s, the student body, faculty, buildings, and grounds at Susquehanna doubled. Similar growth in the “industry” of higher education increased competition among small, undergraduate colleges. Since 1970 Susquehanna has survived this competition due to hard work by faculty and staff, the adoption of better business practices, and the benevolence of outside contributors. These have allowed the institution to adapt to the opportunities and challenges it faced and made it a more diverse and open institution dedicated to providing an undergraduate education in a community of inquiry.

Based on voluminous primary and secondary sources and with copious tables of data and notes, this book gathers information about the institution for the use and enjoyment of both general readers and scholars, readers with an inherent interest in the Susquehanna story and those seeking to understand the community of higher education over a period of one hundred and fifty years.

ISBN 1-57591-112-4

LC 2006031235

Printed in the U.S.A.

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