King's College, Pennsylvania

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King's College (Latin: Collegium Christi Regis)

Motto: "Oportet Eum Regnare" (It Is Fitting that He Should Reign)
Established: 1946
Type: Private
Endowment: $60.7 million[1]
President: The Rev. Father Thomas O'Hara, C.S.C. '71
Staff: 180 faculty members total
Undergraduates: 2,060 [2]
Postgraduates: 163
Location: Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA
Campus: Urban
Colors: Red and Gold
Mascot: Monarchs
Affiliations: Roman Catholic Church, Congregation of Holy Cross
Website: http://www.kings.edu/

King's College is a highly-ranked Roman Catholic, private liberal arts college, located in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The total student enrollment is approximately 2,400. The college is administered by priests and brothers from the Congregation of Holy Cross, who are the founders of the University of Notre Dame, Stonehill College, and several other Catholic colleges in the United States. The college's current President is the Rev. Thomas J. O'Hara, C.S.C. '71. Fr. O'Hara is the first King's alumnus to serve as its president.

The college offers baccalaureate degrees in the basic arts and sciences, business, and several specialized fields such as physician assistant and gerontology. Master degree programs are offered in education and health care.

All students are required to complete a number of core courses, the CORE curriculum. The courses are designed so that all students, no matter what their major, obtain the basic skills of critical thinking, effective writing, effective oral communication, library and information literacy, computer competence, creative thinking and problem solving, quantitative reasoning, and moral reasoning.

King's recently achieved accreditation status for the McGowan School of Business and is seeking accreditation in the education departments.

Contents

[edit] History

King's College - Christ the King (Collegium Christi Regis) was founded in 1946. The college's initial intention was initially built with the hope that the sons of the many miners that lived in the Northeastern Pennsylvania region would be able to attend college.

The school is located near the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre; Tropical Storm Agnes affected the college as it did most of the rest of the city of Wilkes-Barre. A marker in front of the student center exists to show how high the flood waters from the storm went. The college has always been a condensed liberal arts school, but recently it has expanded with the addition of new facilities. A center courtyard was added in the middle of campus, which had previously been a street that divided the campus in half.

King's and neighboring college Wilkes University joined in an effort to bring a downtown bookstore to Wilkes-Barre (Barnes & Noble). King's has made many efforts to purchase abandoned buildings off-campus to try and turn them into commercial or residential properties, with the help of private investors.

UCOM - King's Campus -

[edit] Sports

King's College athletic program is somewhat diverse. All of its teams compete at NCAA Division III level. The college's athletic nickname is the Monarchs. The nickname stems from the 'Monarch Lions.'

The two largest and affluent athletic programs are basketball and football. The football program over its 20 year history has had five All-Americans. All of the sports teams compete in the Middle Atlantic Corporation. King's has produced many records including The Lady Monarchs softball team that won the MAC championships six consecutive years in a row.

The King's College Monarchs baseball team, which was once a cellar-dweller in the conference, is now one of school's best programs. From 2004-2007, the Monarchs broke the wins record in each of the four years. The team won 19 games in 2004, 24 games in 2005, 25 games in 2006, and then 28 games in 2007. The program made a complete turn-around as the Monarchs had only won a total 50 games between the years of 1999-2003 compared to the 114 victories the team has tallied from 2004-2008. The team's best year came in 2006 when the Monarchs won the MAC Freedom Conference championship and earned a NCAA D-III berth.

From the graduating class of 2006, the King's College Monarchs have produced two professional baseball players. Former first baseman and pitcher Caleb Calarco, who earned MAC Freedom Conference player and pitcher of the year in 2006, plays with the Namur Angels in Holland. Also, former 2-time 1st-team All-Conference catcher Jeremy Faust signed an independent league contract with the Amarillo Dillas. Both players excelled on the diamond for the Monarchs, and they have gotten their chance to prove their talent with professional teams.


King's Radio station, WRKC, usually devotes much time to the basketball, football and baseball. WRKC utilizes students to conduct many of the broadcasts.

Local newspaper coverage for all of Monarch sports is mostly provided by the Citizen's Voice and The Times Leader.


[edit] Debate

King's College has for decades competed in NDT intercollegiate debate. In 1961, the King's College team of Frank Harrison and Peter Smith, under coach Robert Connelly, took second place in the West Point National Tournament, predecessor to the modern day National Debate Tournament, against Harvard University's Laurence Tribe and Gene Clements. [1]

[edit] Media

King's College has a student-run radio station, "Radio King's College" WRKC. According to radio-locator.com, the signal fringes out north to Scranton, Pennsylvania and Shickshinny, which is south of Wilkes-Barre. A general manager oversees the entire student-run radio station.

WRKC is well known for playing bands before commercial stations discover them, such as U2. WRKC was the first station to broadcast U2's music in Northeastern Pennsylvania. WRKC primarily plays indie and punk music, but allows students to play their own music during their individual shows as well, as long as it is not mainstream music.

Aside from WRKC, King's has a student newspaper called The Crown that is published every other Tuesday during the school year.

King's literary magazine The Scop - which is Old English for poet - is published twice a year and accepts both written and visual submissions from current students and alumni. Both The Scop and The Crown have been recognized by the American Scholastic Press Association, winning first-place honors among small colleges several times over.

The college, which recently started a Mass Communications Media Club in the fall 2005 has a closed-circuit campus television station, KCTV 10, which sporadically broadcasts shows such as a talk show ("King's Live"), basketball games, news and sports oriented programming.


[edit] Events

King's College regularly hosts a variety of events. The following link leads to the campus event calendar. http://webevent.kings.edu/

[edit] Famous students

  • Santo Loquasto, Broadway set and costume designer, is a King's graduate. [3]
  • Timothy J. Barberich, founder of Sepracor, the company that produces the drug Lunesta. [4] [5]
  • Judith Andrejko, New Jersey State Deputy attorney General, is a 1996 graduate of King's College. [6]
  • Ray Musto, Pennsylvania state senator, is a 1971 King's College graduate.
  • Frank G. Harrison, former United States Congressman

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ 2007 NACUBO Endowment Study
  2. ^ Pennsylvania Mentor - King's College
  3. ^ IMDB: Biography for Santo Loquasto
  4. ^ Sepracor - About Sepracor
  5. ^ Gemin X - Board of Directors
  6. ^ King's College Honors Atty. Judity Andrejko For Professional Achievement
  7. ^ The McGowan Vision - The McGowan Fund