Geneva College

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Geneva College
Motto	Pro Christo et Patria
Established	1848
Type	Private; Christian
President	Kenneth A. Smith
Faculty	79 full time
Undergraduates	1,400
Postgraduates	700
Location	3200 College Ave, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, United States 15010
Campus	Suburban, 55 acres (223,000 m²)
Colors	Gold and White
Nickname	Golden Tornadoes
Affiliations	Reformed Presbyterian
Website	http://www.geneva.edu/

Geneva College is located in the College Hill neighborhood of Beaver Falls, which sits above the more southerly parts of the city.

Stone marking the original campus in Northwood

Johnston Gym, with McKee Hall to the left

Geneva College was the original name of Hobart College.

Geneva College is a small, private, liberal arts college located in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA).

[edit] History

Geneva College was founded in 1848 in Northwood, Ohio, by John Black Johnston, a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA). Originally called "Geneva Hall", the college was named after the Swiss center of the Reformed faith movement. After briefly closing during the American Civil War, the college continued operating in Northwood until 1880. By that time, the college leadership had begun a search for alternate locations that were more close to urban areas. After considering several locations in the Midwest, the denomination chose Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. The college constructed its current campus on land donated by the Harmony Society. Old Main, the oldest building on campus, was completed in 1881.

The United States Army took over the campus during World War I for use as a training base. The college experienced significant growth after World War II as many former servicemen took advantage of the educational provisions of the G.I. Bill. The college also experienced another growth period in the 1990s. The most recent major construction project on campus was the completion of Northwood Hall in the late 1990s. In 2007, a major construction project is expected to begin. The project, which is expected to last for several years, will result in the relocation of Pennsylvania Route 18 and the additions of several new campus buildings.

[edit] Administration

Two bodies oversee the administration of the college, the Board of Corporators and the Board of Trustees; while the Corporators are the official legal owners of the college, in practice most authority is delegated to the Trustees, who are elected by the Corporators. The RPCNA still takes an active sponsorship and oversight role in the college: the college president, chaplain, and chairman of the Department of Biblical Studies must be members of the RPCNA, and all members of the Board of Corporators and the majority of the Board of Trustees must be RPCNA members. All professors and lecturers in the Department of Biblical Studies must subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and all full-time faulty members must sign statements confessing faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian religion.

[edit] Academics

Geneva offers undergraduate degree programs in the arts and sciences, such as elementary education, business, engineering, student ministry, biology, and psychology. In 2006, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) rated the Business and Accounting undergraduates in the 95th percentile amongst American colleges.

Geneva offers a Degree Completion Program (DCP) for degrees in Human Resource Management, Community Ministry or Organizational Development for adult students mainly at off-campus locations. Geneva also established the Center for Urban Theological Studies in Philadelphia and has sister colleges in Taiwan (Christ College) and Korea (Chong Shin College and Theological Seminary).

Geneva also offers graduates studies in several fields. These include a Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership, Masters of Education in Reading, a Master of Business Administration, and Masters of Arts in Counseling and Higher Education.

Geneva established the Center for Technology Development (GCCTD) in 1986 for providing research, prototyping and technical support to local industries and entrepreneurs. The Center was awarded first prize in the Consolidated Natural Gas Company’s Annual Award of Excellence competition in 1990.

[edit] Affiliations and accreditations

Geneva College is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Accreditations include the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology, Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs and the American Chemical Society.

The school's sports teams are called the Golden Tornadoes. Except for the football team, the teams participate in the NAIA and the American Mideast Conference. The football team participates in the Mid-States Football Association. In 2005, Geneva began participating in the Presidents' Athletic Conference of NCAA Division III as a provisional member. Geneva is expected to become a full member in 2011.

[edit] Culture and traditions

The overwhelming majority of students come from evangelical or conservative Mainline Protestant backgrounds. Students must attend a designated number of weekly college sponsored chapels to qualify for graduation. Alchohol and tobacco are banned on campus, and Greek letter fraternities and sororities are not permitted.

Geneva College bills itself the "Birthplace of College Basketball." The first recorded basketball game involving a college team occurred at Geneva College on April 8, 1893 when the Geneva College Covenanters defeated the New Brighton YMCA.

Geneva was founded by Scottish and Scots-Irish immigrants. Many names of campus buildings and areas bear Scottish names:

• The main meeting area of the Student Center is called Skye Lounge after the Isle of Skye.
• The restaurant-style eating area is called The Brig, short for Brigadoon, commemorating a play about a mythical Highland village.
• The guest dining room is referred to as the Clan Room, after the Scottish clans.

Geneva sports teams were nicknamed the Covenanters until the 1950s. Members of the RPCNA are sometimes referred to as Covenanters because the denomination traces its roots to the Covenanting tradition of Reformation era Scotland. The modern sports nickname of Golden Tornadoes commemorates the "Golden Tornado" of May 11, 1914 when a major tornado struck the college. Although the storm caused significant damage to the campus, there were no serious injuries. College students and faculty rejoiced at what they believed was a sign of God's mercy.

Geneva's traditional sports rivalry is with Westminster College in nearby New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. The rivalry was partially interrupted for several years around the turn of the 21st century when Westminster left the NAIA for the NCAA Division III. The rivalry will continue into the future, however, as both will be full football members of the Division III Presidents' Athletic Conference by 2007.

[edit] Controversies

The college was at the center of a controversy in the mid-1990s when the administration asked a member of the faculty to resign. The incident centered around a non-tenured lecturer in the Department of Biblical Studies who had announced that he had converted to Roman Catholicism. The administration explained that as a Catholic he could no longer subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a requirement for teaching theology at the college.

On December 15, 2006, the college filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania. The lawsuit alleges that a decision by the state to block the college from participating in the state sponsored CareerLink job service amounts to a violation of the college's First Amendment rights. The state argues that the college's requirement that faculty members subscribe to the Christian religion amounts to discrimination, while the college argues that the faculty religious test constitutes a bona fide occupational qualification under existing federal employment law. The lawsuit, which is being co-sponsored by the Association of Faith-Based Organizations and argued by the Christian Legal Society, is still pending as of 2007.

[edit] Facilities

Geneva's administration and faculty offices and classrooms are found largely in the following buildings:

• Alexander Hall — Administration and Dining facilities.
• Ferncliffe — Faculty offices.
• Johnston Gym — Primarily music and band. Originally, per its name, it was used as the college gymnasium.
• McCartney Library — Built in 1930 and expanded in 1965. Its collection includes over 371,000 items including a special section of RPCNA historical documents.
• Northwood Hall — Classrooms and faculty offices for business and psychology departments. Constructed in the late 1990s, it is the newest major building on campus.
• Old Main — Classrooms, administration offices (including the president's office), and faculty offices. When Geneva moved to Beaver Falls, Old Main was the first classroom structure.
• Rapp Technical Design Center — Technical classrooms and laboratories.
• Science and Engineering (S&E) — Technical classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices for engineering, chemistry, biology, physics and computer science departments.
• Alumni Hall — Primary music building, including music department offices.
• Old Headland — Secondary music building, including the Office for Music Performance.

Student life and sports facilities include the following:

• Bagpiper and Studio Theaters — Theater productions sponsored by the Communications Department.
• Merriman Athletic Complex — Track and soccer.
• Metheney Fieldhouse — Gyms, locker rooms, sports faculty offices, and other sports-related facilities.
• Reeves Field — Football. The field is also used by the football team of Big Beaver Falls High School and was Joe Namath's home field during his high school days.
• Student Center — Lounges, Brigadoon restaurant, Riverview Cafe coffeeshop, student mail, fitness center and bookstore.
• WGEV — Geneva's Internet-only radio station. In earlier years, the station broadcast on the FM band at an assigned frequency of 88.3 MHz and showed sports and original programming on cable television.

Geneva's residence halls including the following buildings:

• Clarke Hall — traditional freshmen women's dorm with three floors of two-person rooms.
• Geneva Arms — four floors of upperclassmen apartment-style dorms, with apartment capacities ranging from three to six persons. The Arms is divided into men's and women's buildings.
• McKee Hall — traditional upperclassmen women's dorm with three floors of two-person rooms.
• Memorial Hall - traditional upperclassmen men's dorm with four floors of two-person rooms.
• Pearce Hall - traditional freshmen men's dorm with four floors of two-person rooms. Although an artist's rendering (made before construction) shows Pearce as a men's dorm, it functioned as a women's dorm for many years.
• Young Hall - four floors of freshmen apartment-style dorms, with apartment capacities ranging from three to six persons. Young Hall is divided into men's and women's buildings.

Geneva also operates several smaller houses, primarily for upperclassmen. The college also places some restrictions on out-of-town students living off-campus.

[edit] Notable alumni or attendees

Politics

• Robert P. Kennedy (1840-1918), US Congressman from Ohio
• Charles R. Eckert (1868-1959), US Congressman from Pennsylvania
• J. Howard Swick (1879-1952), US Congressman from Pennsylvania
• Henry Wilson Temple (1864-1955), US Congressman from Pennsylvania

Sports

• Cal Hubbard (1900-1977), National Football League and Major League Baseball Hall of Fame
• Joe Beggs (1910-1983), Major League Baseball player^[1]

Arts

• W.D. Snodgrass, American poet and a 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner

[edit] External links

• Geneva College website
• The Cabinet Geneva College newspaper
• Pro Christo Et Patria: A History of Geneva College
• WGEV Geneva College radio station

[edit] References

1. ^ Joe Beggs Statistics, Baseballreference.com. Accessed 25 March 2007.