LIGHT EM UP!
Hillsdale College is a private conservative[4] liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan. It was founded in 1844 by abolitionists known as Free Will Baptists.[5]
Its liberal arts curriculum is based on Western heritage as a product of Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian tradition.[6] The required core curriculum has courses on the Great Books, the U.S. Constitution, biology, chemistry, and physics.[4]
Since the late 20th century, in order to opt out of federal affirmative action policies, Hillsdale has been among a small number of U.S. colleges to decline governmental financial support, instead depending entirely on private funding to supplement students' tuition.[7][8][4]
Founding
In August 1844, members of the local community of Free Will Baptists resolved to organize their denomination's first collegiate institution.[5]: 4 After gathering donations, they established Michigan Central College in Spring Arbor, Michigan, on December 4, 1844.[5]: 6 That site is now home to Spring Arbor University. Although religiously affiliated, the college was officially nonsectarian.[9]
Under its first president, Daniel McBride Graham, who held the office from 1844 to 1848, Michigan Central College opened within a two-room store and admitted five students. In March 1845, the government of Michigan incorporated the college, and the college enrolled 25 undergraduates by the end of its first year.[10]: 12 [11][5]: 11
Edmund Burke Fairfield assumed the presidency of Michigan Central College in 1848. On March 20, 1850, the Michigan legislature granted the college a special charter, giving it the right to confer degrees.[10]: 12–14 [5]: 116 Black students were admitted immediately after the college's founding,[12] and the college became the second school in the nation to grant four-year liberal arts degrees to women.[13][10]: 12–14
Outgrowing its space, in 1853 the school moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, in part to have access to the railroad that served the city. It received considerable financial support from local citizens, who wanted to develop the 20-year-old town.[10]: 30 The cornerstone of the new building, Central Hall, was laid on July 4, 1853.[14][5]: 24 After Michigan Central College completed construction and moved, it reopened as Hillsdale College on November 7, 1855.
Fairfield led Hillsdale from 1848 to 1869.[11] During his presidency, he helped found the Republican Party with Ransom Dunn in neighboring Jackson, Michigan.[15] A prominent leader, Fairfield attended the first Republican Party convention in 1858, and was elected lieutenant governor of Michigan. Hillsdale's early anti-slavery reputation and pivotal role in founding the Republican Party led to the invitation of several notable speakers on the campus, including Frederick Douglass (who visited the school on two separate occasions) and Edward Everett, the orator preceding Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.[10]: xxv, 49 On August 8, 1860, Hillsdale conferred its first degrees. On March 20, 1863, the Michigan legislature formally legalized Hillsdale's change of name and location.[5]: 33
Hillsdale no longer has any denominational affiliation but, according to its website, "the moral tenets of Christianity as commonly understood in the Christian tradition have been essential to the mission of the College".[16] It has always been open to black and female students.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College