| Earlham College |
Article Index for Earlham |
Website Links For Earlham College |
Information AboutEarlham College |
Earlham College is a national, selective Quaker Liberal Arts College in Richmond, Indiana . It was founded in 1847 and has approximately 1,200 students. The current president is Doug Bennett. In keeping with Friends belief in equality, everyone addresses each other at Earlham by his/her first name, without the use of titles, such as 'Doctor'/'Professor.' Earlham College sits on an 800 acre (3.2 km&2) campus, the majority of which is undeveloped forest and meadow. The undeveloped 'back campus' area is criss-crossed by trails for the enjoyment of the student body as well as serving as a readily accessible outdoor classroom. Earlham is nationally recognized for its strong programs in Biology , Japanese Studies ,and Peace And Global Studies . The Earlham Libraries are known for their course-integrated program of information literacy instruction. Notably, Earlham ranks 8th in the nation (out of 1,302 colleges and universities) in its percentage of graduates who go on to receive a Ph.D. in the Biological Sciences and 26th in the percentage of students going on to Ph.D. programs in all fields. Earlham has an extensive Outdoor Education program which features its own indoor climbing wall. Tucked into Earlham's 'back campus' is a high and low ropes challenge course. Earlham was one of the first colleges in the country to send students on Wilderness Backpacking trips (either to the Uinta Mountains in northeastern Utah for the 'mountain program' or to a remote lake in northern Ontario for the 'water program') or other outdoor adventures during freshman orientation. Today many colleges have adopted such programs. Earlham also has a state-of-the-art Equestrian center that is student run. Earlham ranks high among Liberal Arts schools of its size with regard to student body diversity. Earlham has sizable Black and Jewish populations. International students comprise 10% of the student body. There are small numbers of Catholics , Unitarian Universalists, Muslims , Buddhists, Evangelical Protestants , and Bahá'í students, and a large number of students affiliated with Mainline Protestant denominations. There are also atheists, agnostics, and non-denominationalists. Between 10 and 15 percent of the student population belongs to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The faculty at Earlham provide a rigorous curriculum and engage students in collaborative research. The student to faculty ratio is approximately 12:1. Earlham College has a high number of faculty-led Off-campus Programs . Almost two-thirds of Earlham students go on a semester-length off-campus program to such destinations as Mexico, Vienna, Martinique, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, the Southwestern U.S., Japan and Tanzania (formerly Kenya). In addition, there are a number of shorter off-campus May Terms , with destinations both within the US and abroad (Galapagos, Senegal, Menorca, Turkey as recent examples). Earlham has a formal exchange program with Waseda University in Japan , which has existed informally for decades. Each year about a dozen students from each school experience a year of student life at the other university. In addition, Earlham College works with the SICE program in Morioka , Japan , a program in which about twelve to fourteen students teach English in grade schools in Morioka . Earlham College is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association , and also a member of the North Coast Athletic Conference . While not an outstanding athletic school, Earlham has won championships in men's Cross Country and has an Ultimate Frisbee team. The athletics teams are known as the "Quakers," revised from the "Hustlin' Quakers" in the 1980s. Amongst the student-body, the chant sometimes sung publicly is "Fight, Fight, Inner Light! Kill, Quakers, Kill! Knock 'em Down, Beat 'em Senseless! Do It til We Reach Consensus!" Earlham is unique in that it has an entirely student-managed public radio station, WECI 91.5FM. Earlham has the only student-run Hash House Harriers running group, founded in 1989 and still continuing at present (2006). Loosely connected with national organizations, the student group maintains weekly runs and has been described by visitors as the "Galapagos of Hashes" for the creativity and development of hashing practices. The "Hash" run takes place on the 'back campus' during all seasons. The Hash was suspended briefly in the spring of 2004 when a student died from a fall he took that ruptured his spleen. NON CONSENSUS ISSUES Earlham's "dry campus" policy is controversial among members of the student body and some faculty members. Drinking is fairly commonplace, with some students referring to the campus as "pleasantly moist". Tension sometimes arises between students and the Quaker Indiana Yearly Meeting over issues of sexuality. Indiana Yearly Meeting tends to be more conservative on issues such as Condom distribution, Pregnancy , and Homosexuality . Earlham College only recently adopted a pregnancy policy, despite its Progressive reputation. Before this there were no explicit guidelines in the event that a student became pregnant. The new policy states that pregnant women may reside in on-campus housing, but are also offered a housing exemption if they so desire. Until lately the distribution of condoms (and other contraceptive devices) on campus was restricted to health services. Recently condoms have become available outside the room of each hall's Resident Assistant. Other points of contention were political, mostly involving Conservative speakers invited to campus. While some students are hostile to these speakers because of their political views, other students enjoyed the chance to hear speakers with divergent points of view. On March 29th, 2005, William Kristol , editor of the " Weekly Standard " was hit in the face with an ice cream pie by a student during a lecture he gave on campus {Link without Title} . This event made national and international news and was carried by many leading news outlets. Many students and faculty at the lecture showed strong disapproval of the act and applauded when Kristol resumed his talk. The "pie-ing" quickly became a divisive issue among Earlham students and faculty. Some of the main areas of contention included whether or not throwing a pie is a violent act, how or whether the student that threw the pie should be punished for that action, the importance of free speech, how to improve political diversity on campus, and whether a Quaker -affiliated school should provide a venue and funding for a speaker who openly and avidly supports the Iraq War. Other conservative (and libertarian) speakers have been welcomed at Earlham in the past, in spite of the trend for students and faculty at Earlham to have more liberal-left political leanings. Conservative speakers such as former U.S. President Richard Nixon (then a freshman Congressman and a lifelong member of a Quaker Meeting himself), Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar , Christina Hoff Sommers , Michelle Easton, Kay Hiemenowitz, Ward Connerly and Stanley Kurtz received warm receptions despite their different perspective from many students. Famed columnist and right-wing political pundit Ann Coulter 's talk on campus in November of 2001 was more provocative. After the September 11th attacks on America, Coulter's weekly column ("This is War", 9/14/01), featured the statement that "we should invdade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." This statement bothered the student and faculty body alike greatly, and a student-organized, counter-project called H.A.H.A. (Help Ann Help Arabs) was devised to raise money (approximately $2000) to balance out the money needed to bring Coulter. During her talk, an array of folded peace cranes was dropped from the balcony and one student approached Coulter himself and put an orange on the podium, exclaiming "I disagree with you but I don't hate you..." (This action was prompted by the fact that some students at Cornell University - Coulter's alma mater, threw oranges at her during a speech she gave there) Despite her antagonism with a packed house of students and faculty, Coulter was able to complete her lecture and take questions from the audience. However, while there have been some notable exceptions, it is true that the majority of speakers that are invited to Earlham tend to reflect a leftwing viewpoints. Major left-leaning personalities visiting campus in recent years include Cornel West , Bell Hooks , Rashid Khalidi , Frances Moore Lappe, Ralph Nader , Jackson Katz, Angela Davis , Anthony Romero , Leslie Feinberg, Dianne Nash, Victoria Jackson Gray Adams, Howard Zinn and Margaret Cho . Every spring, typically in March, Earlham hosts the Carter Peace Lecture, a lecture devoted to the topic of peacemaking; recent speakers include John Perkins and Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of the S.O.A. Watch. In addition, Earlham has hosted a wide variety of well-known entertainers, often with a political theme, including Arethra Franklin, Bill Cosby, The Indigo Girls, The San Francisco Mime Troup, The Chicago Kings, Melissa Ferrick, Jessica Delfino, The Trachtenberg Family Slide Show, Alix Olson, Doria Roberts , Bitch and Animal, and former student David Rovics. Weekend entertainment is brought by the Student Activities Board. The 2005-2006 school year featured performances by Aesop Rock , RJD2 , Xiu Xiu , Jens Lekman , Cunninlynguists , Taylor Mali and Enon . NOTABLE ALUMNI
NOTABLE FACULTY
EXTERNAL LINKS
REFERENCES |