Guilford College

Guilford College, founded in 1837 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), is an independent college whose stated mission is to: "provide a transformative, practical and excellent liberal arts education that produces critical thinkers in an inclusive, diverse environment, guided by Quaker testimonies of community, equality, integrity, peace and simplicity and emphasizing the creative problem-solving skills, experience, enthusiasm and international perspectives necessary to promote positive change in the world."^[4] The small college focuses on teaching, experiential- and service-learning, and a student-centered approach.^[4]

• Guilford is the third-oldest coeducational institution in the country, the oldest such institution in the South, and the fourth-oldest institution of higher learning in North Carolina. The wooded campus is located in Greensboro, NC.

• Guilford has both traditional students and students who attend its Center for Continuing Education (CCE).

• Guilford's academic programs—both disciplinary and interdisciplinary—include 38 majors and 54 minors, with a range of liberal arts and pre-professional opportunities. Guilford also supports students in creating individualized programs and in selecting studies which will contribute to their own development and interests.^[5]

Academics, Principled Problem Solving, and Experiential Learning

Guilford states that it stresses breadth and rigor in its academic program and that, as a Quaker-founded college, it offers an educational experience that emphasizes the study of human values and the inter-relatedness of the world's knowledge and cultures. Guilford College states that, in support of its mission, its vision is to provide:

• a student-centered instruction that nurtures each individual amid an intentionally diverse community;
• a challenging academic program that fosters critical and creative thinking through the development of essential skills: analysis, inquiry, communication, consensus-building, problem-solving and leadership;
• a global perspective that values people of other cultures and the natural environment in which we all live;
• a values-rich education that explores the ethical dimension of knowledge and promotes honesty, compassion, integrity, courage and respect for the individual;
• access to work and service opportunities that forge a connection between thought and action.^[6]

Principled Problem Solving. According to Guilford College, Principled Problem Solving (PPS) is a central and unifying aspect of Guilford College's practical liberal arts educational experience. PPS challenges students to focus their abilities and experiences toward solving real-world problems under the guidance of the college's core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship. The purpose is to focus Guilford's mission in both the curricular and extracurricular life of its students towards the practical liberal arts. Guilford students learn to address problems critically, creatively, constructively, with courage and conscience. Through foundations, practice, and application, students develop practical, creative, interdisciplinary, and cross-sector critical-thinking skills.^[7]

The Center for Principled Problem Solving. The Center was established in 2007 to deepen the understanding of PPS at Guilford. This interdisciplinary, college-wide center promotes student, faculty, staff and community participation in PPS projects that put Guilford's core values to work in the world.^[7]

Guilford's Five Academic Principles. Five principles govern courses and other educational experiences at the College:

• Innovative, student-centered learning
• Challenge to engage in creative and critical thinking
• Cultural and global perspectives
• Values and the ethical dimension of knowledge
• Focus on practical application: vocation and service to the larger community^[8]

Guilford's Strategic Outcomes for Preparation: Skills, Knowledge, and Values. Guilford's stated aim is to graduate students who are “ready on day one” to contribute to their communities and to succeed at work, graduate or professional school, community service, and life in general. Strategic outcomes for students fall into four broad areas:

• cognitive (think critically, know globally)
• skills (communicate effectively, create insightfully)
• values (engage responsibly, choose diversity)
• applications (ability to learn experientially, achieve personal and career goals)^[9]

Experiential Learning. The Guilford College Strategic Long-Range Plan 2011-2016: Outcomes of a Guilford College Education states that Guilford emphasizes learning through experiences (study abroad, service-learning, internships, and undergraduate research) and integrates it as an essential component of the Guilford experience.^[10] Examples include:

• Study abroad. The opportunity to understand and appreciate diverse cultures is an part of a Guilford education. Guilford's study abroad programs take students around the globe, where they can have an active role in their host communities.
• Service. Service learning puts Guilford's core values to work in the world. For example, the Bonner Center for Community Learning provides resources, opportunities, connections and direction that encourage the integration of academics and experience, campus and community, self and service, passion and purpose.
• Internships. Guilford stresses practical experience in preparation for careers, graduate school, work, and life. The Career Development Center provides support, resources, and guidance.
• Undergraduate Research. Guilford's Undergraduate Symposium provides an opportunity to showcase the variety and quality of original work that Guilford students pursue in their classes, senior projects and theses, as well as in a range of venues outside Guilford.

Core Values

Guilford College is guided by seven core values: community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship. These enduring values are the basis of the College's mission and are based on, and consistent with, the five Quaker testimonies. Indeed, three testimonies—community, equality, and integrity—are also core values. Core values are not developed as much as identified; they exist and need only to be discovered and collectively defined. The campus community identified these values through a participative and inclusive process. The stated core values are:

• Community. We are committed to the cultivation of positive relationships between, and common experiences among, students, faculty, and staff.
• Diversity. We are committed to creating an academic institution where a variety of persons and perspectives are welcome. We are committed to providing an environment where students from all cultures and backgrounds may succeed.
• Integrity. We are committed to creating a community that acts with honesty and forthrightness, holding ourselves to high academic and ethical standards, and dealing with everyone with respect.
• Equality. We are committed to creating an institution and a society where everyone is appreciated and judged based on their contributions and performance rather than gender, race, religion, physical abilities, sexual identity, or socio-economic condition. Through the work of this institution, we will both create awareness of, and work to eliminate, individual and institutional racism.
• Justice. We are committed to the peaceful resolution of conflict, sharing of economic and natural resources, and parity in educational opportunity.
• Stewardship. We are committed to making decisions that will ensure the long-term survival of this institution. We must maximize the value of our human, financial, and physical resources in ways consistent with our Quaker heritage.
• Excellence. We are committed to setting high standards of academic rigor in courses and creating high expectations for achievement by everyone. We seek the personal and intellectual transformation of our students through the liberal arts.^[11]

Campus Life

Quaker Heritage. Guilford College has the distinction of being the only Quaker founded college in the southeastern United States. Originally opening in 1837 as New Garden Boarding School, the institution transformed itself into a four year liberal arts college in 1888. Guilford College continues to place its Quaker heritage at the center of its mission, though it has broadened its outlook beyond North Carolina and the Religious Society of Friends – to include students from a wide variety of faith traditions, regions, and life experiences and strives to educate creative leadership for the twenty-first century. Throughout its history, the institution has endeavored to offer a practical liberal arts education informed by Quaker testimonies. Like New Garden Boarding School, Guilford College adapts and grows to meet the educational needs of a community. While only about ten percent of the student body are Quakers, Guilford's Quaker heritage and the Quaker testimonies continue to serve as a guide for the Guilford community.^[12] Guilford's academic atmosphere, like that of many Quaker colleges, is open and informal; for example, many professors encourage students to call them by their first names. Guilford's current president is Kent John Chabotar, the first non-Quaker to hold the position.

Friends Center. Friends Center at Guilford College is a collaborative endeavor of the College and the Religious Society of Friends to strengthen Friends and their institutions. As a Quaker resource center for the Southeast and beyond, Friends Center provides programs that nurture servant-leaders both at Guilford College and in the wider community. These activities are grounded in prayer, informed by Friends' faith and practice, nourished by worship and spiritual formation, and brought to fullness in Quaker community.^[13]

Diversity. The college's Diversity Plan guides the community. Guilford states that exploring and celebrating the many facets of diversity and multiculturalism is encouraged and enriched at the College. The student body is diverse, as Guilford intentionally draws students from a wide geographic, political, religious, ethnic and socioeconomic background. The college seeks to maintain an environment where all perspectives are valued and respected. The work of the Multicultural Educational Department and the Diversity Plan reflects the community's desire for an institution characterized by substantive equality and other aspects of our vision of multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion. Substantive equality focuses on the acceptance of many identities, desire for inclusive engagement, and assurance that entitlements, opportunities, and access are fairly and justly distributed throughout an organization. It builds on cultural pluralism, defined as a condition of community in which numerous distinct ethnic, religious, or cultural groups interact constructively.^[14]

Sustainability. Guilford's sustainability initiatives make it one of the most "Green" campuses in America. Guilford College signed the American Colleges and Universities Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in May 2007, one of the first four North Carolina colleges and the first Quaker-founded college nationally to do so. The goal of Guilford's Climate Action Plan is to reach carbon neutrality by 2047. Guilford's 200 panels on eight buildings are the largest solar thermal system on a college campus in the U.S. 12 solar thermal panels installed in 2007 and 188 in 2010 (in partnership with FLS Energy) heat 60 percent of water needed by campus residents. The Energy Use Limitation Program caps energy usage and 85 percent of campus buildings are individually metered, allowing precise documentation of electrical energy usage. In addition to the President's Climate Commitment and energy and emissions, transportation initiatives, the curriculum, composting, water conservation, recycling, dining services, and the work of the Sustainability Council are also among the institutional support for sustainability.^[15]

Clubs and student organizations. A wide variety of student clubs and organizations exist at Guilford College.^[16]

The Early College and Guilford. The Early College at Guilford is hosted at the College.

Colleges that Change Lives. Loren Pope listed Guilford College in his book Colleges That Change Lives.^[17]

Athletics

Guilford competes as an NCAA Division III and Old Dominion Athletic Conference member.^[18] The school has won five national championships, including the 1973 NAIA men's basketball title, the 1981 NAIA women's tennis title and the 1989 (NAIA), 2002 and 2005 (NCAA Division III) men's golf titles. Guilford has enjoyed additional recent success in golf and basketball.

Facilities

• American Hebrew Academy Stadium: Track and field. On the grounds of the American Hebrew Academy.
• Armfield Athletic Center: Football, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer. 2,200-capacity.
• Haworth Field: Softball.
• Edgar H. McBane Field: Baseball.
• Ragan-Brown Field House: Men's and women's basketball, and women's volleyball. 2,500-capacity.
• Dorothy Ragsdale McMichael '37 Centennial Class Courts: Tennis
• Royce Reynolds Family Student Life Center Pool: Swimming

Campus events

Bryan Series. In the past decade, Guilford's Bryan Series^[19] has brought many notable speakers to the campus and city for an annual public lecture series. Past speakers have included Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Ken Burns, Mary Robinson, David McCullough, and Toni Morrison. The 2008–09 Bryan Series lecturers were Khaled Hosseini, Christiane Amanpour and James Rubin, Salman Rushdie, and Anna Quindlen. The 2009–10 lecturers were Garry Trudeau, Paul Krugman, Anna Deavere Smith, David Gregory, and Yo-Yo Ma.^[20]

Former President Bill Clinton headlined the Bryan Series in 2010–11.^[21]

Eastern Music Festival (EMF). Every summer, the college hosts the five-week-long Eastern Music Festival (EMF), where both professional and student musicians come together for seminars and public performances. Each year, EMF features more than 70 concerts and music-related events on- and off-campus.

Serendipity. Probably the largest campus-wide event of the year, besides Homecoming, is "Serendipity", held annually in the spring. In its heyday during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the festival was attended by Guilford students and alumni as well as thousands of students from other local institutions in the Triad area. Musical acts who have played this event include: Dave Matthews Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, Common, Talib Kweli, De La Soul, Luscious Jackson, The Violent Femmes, Man Man, and The Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Gallery

Campus pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/guilfordcollege/sets/72157622790832433/show/

Notable alumni

• Mary Ann Akers: 1991, reporter for Roll Call
• M. L. Carr: 1973, former ABA/NBA player, head coach and executive
• Arthur Chase: 1991, Director of Sports Information Duke University
• Howard Coble: 1953, member of U.S. House of Representatives (6th District, N.C.)
• Joseph M. Dixon: 1889, U.S. representative, Senator and Governor of Montana
• David M. Dobson: creator of Snood
• Rick Elmore: 1974, Judge, North Carolina Court of Appeals
• Rick Ferrell: 1928, former major league baseball player and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame
• John Hamlin Folger: U.S. Representative
• World B. Free (née Lloyd Free): 1976, former NBA player
• Rick Goings: CEO of Tupperware
• Greg Jackson: 1974, former NBA player
• Bob Kauffman: 1968, three-time NBA All-Star and former NBA head coach/general manager
• Penelope W. Kyle: 1969, president of Radford University
• Junior Lord: 1998, Arena Football player
• Heidi Meroth: 1991, Tennis Professional USPTA
• Warren Mitofsky: 1957, inventor of the exit poll
• Dave Odom: 1965, former head men's basketball coach, East Carolina, Wake Forest & Univ. of South Carolina, now Chairman of Maui Invitational Basketball Tournament EA Sports Maui Invitational
• William Queen: 1981, author of New York Times bestseller Under and Alone
• Doc Searls: 1969, journalist, Cluetrain author
• Ernie Shore: 1913, former major league baseball player and teammate of Babe Ruth
• Samuel Laurence Venuto, NFL Running Back for the 1952 Washington Redskins.Long time high school Athletic Director and football coach. Member of the New Jersey Coaches Hall of Fame.
• Michael P. Waddell: 1991, Director of Athletics, Towson University
• Tony Womack: 1992, Major League Baseball player
• Hunter Yurachek: 1990, Director of Athletics Coastal Carolina University

Notable faculty

• Howard Brinton, a Quaker activist and author, served as the acting president of Guilford during World War I.
• David M. Dobson, inventor of the computer game Snood, is a Professor of Geology at Guilford.
• David Hammond, notable director, is a Theater Studies Professor at Guilford.

See also

• WQFS

References

External links

• Guilford College official site
• Student newspaper The Guilfordian official site