It was quiet on campus when we visited Valparaiso University earlier this summer, but I found that this northern Indiana school has an interesting and eventful history.
The school began as the Valparaiso Male and Female College, one of the first four-year coeducational colleges in the United States at its founding by the Methodist Church in 1859. Financial challenges the school faced during the Civil War and its aftermath forced it to close in 1871.
The college reopened as the Northern Indiana Normal School in 1873. The school became Valparaiso College in 1900, re-chartered as Valparaiso University in 1906 and earned a reputation of providing students with high-quality education at an affordable price.
Financial difficulties in the aftermath of World War I sparked a particularly troubled chapter in the school's history.
By the early 1920s, Valparaiso was nearly bankrupt, $375,000 in debt, unaccredited and losing enrollment.
Then-president of the university, Horace M. Evans approached the Rockefeller Foundation, the Indiana legislature, church groups and wealthy individuals to save the school by purchasing it. They all turned him down.
In 1923, Evans tentatively agreed to sell the school for $340,000 and a million-dollar endowment fund to the only interested buyer he could find--Indiana's Ku Klux Klan. It's shocking that a university president would ever consider such a sale, but Evans was desperate to save the school from closing. It's also ironic in light of the school's history of inclusiveness as an early co-ed college and its strong commitment to diversity today.
The planned sale drew a lot of faculty opposition and generated reams of negative publicity.
The deal, thankfully, fell through because the Klan's national organization didn't come through with the money for it.
In 1925, the Lutheran University Association stepped in to purchase Valparaiso University, and today Valparaiso University is the largest independent Lutheran University in the United States.
Valpo alumni include writer/actor John Lutz of "30 Rock", JoBe Cerny (an actor best known as the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy) and pioneering broadcaster/journalist Lowell Thomas.
The fate of the school's Engineering program during the Great Depression in the 1930s, and its rebirth at the hands of the department's own students, is another interesting story.
The Engineering Department became a two-year associate's program during the 1930s, but students lobbied to restore it to a four-year degree program in the late 1940s. University officials hesitated because of a lack of money and space, but the students proposed using their engineering knowledge to design and build a facility, and promised to raise money for it if the university provided the engineering faculty. By 1951, Valparaiso again had a four-year Engineering bachelor's degree program, and the student-built facility today is home to Valpo's Art Department.
Valparaiso University's Chapel of the Resurrection is a major northern Indiana landmark and visible from Indiana's leg of the Lincoln Highway. The university broke ground for the building in 1956 and dedicated it in 1959 as part of the school's centennial celebration.
The 98-foot tall building is largest collegiate chapel in U.S. and sits on the highest elevation at Valparaiso's campus. Its circular shape, topped by a nine-pointed star and sheathed in intricate 95-foot-tall stained glass windows, make for a striking and modern exterior.
There is also an unusual shaped labyrinth and pretty prayer garden in front of the chapel.
Unfortunately, the building was closed for renovations when we visited so we couldn't tour the building's interior. As always, the things I don't see on one trip provide an excuse for a future visit!
Check out some of my other stories about our great Midwestern colleges and universities:
Back to school at Indiana's University of Notre Dame
Back to school at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio
Visiting Ohio Northern University at Ada, Ohio
A birds-eye view of Detroit's Wayne State University
Public art at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan
Metal marching band at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan
Want to learn a bit more about Valparaiso and its history? Check out Valparaiso: Looking Back, Moving Forward by Lanette Mullins
© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved
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