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[Pages S1269-S1270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CENTRE COLLEGE BICENTENNIAL
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Kentucky's rich history brings many
causes of reflection and celebration. For 200 years, Centre College has
been a premier setting for liberal arts education in Kentucky, earning
nationwide acclaim and respect. So today I would like to commemorate
the bicentennial of one of the Commonwealth's most treasured
institutions.
In 1819, the Kentucky Legislature formally established the school in
Danville, giving it a name inspired by its central geographic location.
Overseeing the school was a board of trustees filled with notable
Kentuckians, including our first Governor, Isaac Shelby, as its
chairman and Ephraim McDowell, the famed frontier surgeon who performed
the first successful ovariotomy. Construction began shortly after on
the school's first building, which was completed the next year and
stands to this day with the name ``Old Centre.'' Classes began that
fall with two professors and five pupils. With a commitment to
classical liberal arts education, the curriculum focused on topics such
as Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and logic.
Encountering financial difficulties in subsequent years, Kentucky
ceded administration of Centre to a Presbyterian denomination but the
legislature ensured that the school would remain accessible to students
and faculty of all faiths. In 1830, a new president took the reins of
the school. Twenty-seven-year-old John C. Young, a minister, teacher,
and administrator, expanded the college and helped advance it toward
distinction. At the end of his 27 years of leadership, the school
boasted a 200-plus student body, secured an endowment of more than
$100,000, and employed a renowned faculty.
Through the following decades, the school continued to grow in
excellence and impact. Although the Civil War caused a temporary drop
in the number of graduates--and the successive occupations of Old
Centre by Confederate and Union forces--Centre's commitment to its
liberal arts mission never wavered. The school had gained such great
national distinction that the president of Princeton University, also
the future President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, is said to
have remarked in 1903 that, ``There is a little college down in
Kentucky which, in her sixty years, has graduated more men who have
acquired prominence and fame than has Princeton in her 150 years.''
Centre's reputation for excellence has reached beyond the classroom.
In what the New York Times would later call ``Football's Upset of the
Century,'' the Praying Colonels scored an unlikely victory over the
top-ranked Harvard University football team in 1921. Not long after,
Centre officially became coeducational in 1926. The following decades
saw the integration of the school, the expansion of the campus to
include new buildings, and the establishment of a chapter of the
prestigious Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
One of the greatest measures of a college are the alumni it has
produced. Centre graduates can be found in a wide range of
distinguished fields, including the highest levels of the U.S.
Government. Vice Presidents John C. Breckinridge and Adlai Stevenson
both held diplomas from the school, as did Supreme Court Chief Justice
Fred Vinson and Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan. More than a
dozen U.S. Senators, scores of Congressmen, and 11 Governors have also
graduated from the school, as have leaders in business, medicine, law,
and journalism. Perhaps it was the school's history of producing Vice
Presidents and other prominent figures that led to its hosting of not
one, but two Vice Presidential debates, in 2000 and 2012.
For such an impressive milestone, Centre has planned a year of
celebratory events to mark its history and to herald its potential for
the future. With President John Roush, the faculty, staff, students,
and one of the most engaged alumni bases in the country, I am proud to
mark Centre College's bicentennial. They all deserve the Senate's
congratulations and best wishes for the future of liberal arts
education in Kentucky.
[[Page S1270]]
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