Berry College
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Berry College is a private, liberal arts college located in the north Georgia, USA, community of Mount Berry, which lies on the northernmost boundary of Rome. The institution encourages academic excellence, student work, and service to society, as well as emphasizing the importance of religion. This focus is usually referenced as "educating the head, heart, and hands" and follows the school's motto, "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." With approximately 2,100 students and 28,000 acres (113 km²) of north Georgia hill country, Berry College's campus is the largest contiguous campus in the world.
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[edit] History
Berry was founded in 1902 by Martha McChesney Berry (1866-1942) as a school for rural boys when few public schools existed in Georgia. A girls' school was added in 1909. A junior college was established in 1926 and a four-year college in 1930; graduate programs outside the liberal arts were added in 1972. Financial contributions from Henry Ford and from the Ford Foundation, and donations from thousands of others have helped the institution establish itself as a leading liberal arts college in the southeastern United States.
[edit] Religion
Berry was never officially affiliated with a particular Christian denomination, though, like many private schools, it was founded as a Protestant institution with required chapel attendance and adherence to the Christian faith. Though mandatory religious adherence was abandoned decades ago, religious practice is prominent on campus. The campus has a chaplain, non-denominational campus church, three chapels, and an active religion-in-life program spanning all Christian denominations. An interfaith council and an interfaith center were started by President Colley in the 2000s to address the concerns and needs of non-Christians.
[edit] Student Work
Each student is guaranteed a job on campus through the student work program with funding from the federal government's work study program. Students participate in all aspects of campus work, from grounds crew and dining services to professors' assistants, from day care to secretarial assistants to the president. The Bonner Foundation provides select Berry students with community service scholarships, which allow students to work with dozens of community agencies rather than to work on campus.
Berry has become particularly known for its teacher education program. The college's agricultural programs, which once ran a production dairy, produced beef, pork, chicken, and horticultural items for consumption on campus and sale, were refocused in the 2000s on research rather than production. The construction programs, which once ran a brickyard and lumberyard and built many of the campus' buildings, were ended decades ago.
[edit] Campus Life
Traditional greek social fraternities and sororities are not present on campus, but many clubs exist, including national and international honor, service, and leadership societies.
Over the past two decades, a strategic partnership between Berry and the WinShape Foundation has transformed the college's mountain campus into a service community, including a college scholarship program with two dormitories serving over a hundred students, three foster homes, boys & girls summer camps, a challenge/ropes course, and a retreat center and cabins for corporate and community groups and marriage seminars. This arrangement with WinShape has been controversial with some members of the Berry community because of the religious nature of WinShape and because WinShape inhabits the campus left vacant by the closure of the Berry Academy.
[edit] Athletics
The Berry College mascot is the Viking and the athletic teams are Division I members of the NAIA. Although Berry College does not have a football team, basketball, soccer, baseball, golf, tennis, and vollyball are popular. A strong intramural sports program exists and a $30 million sports and recreation building is under construction.
[edit] Setting
The Berry campus consists of fields, forests, and Lavender Mountain. It is open to the public for hiking, cycling, horse back riding, kite flying, and other outdoor activities. Present on the hillside campus are families of deer, which are estimated to outnumber students seven to one. The absence of natural predators have made the deer a pest. Much of Berry's campus is a wildlife preserve, and hunting the deer in their habitat is a crime by Georgia state law outside of certain months of the year as directed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Fishing on some of the campus' lakes and streams is permitted with proper permits. Berry also has a wealth of wild turkeys, seasonal ducks and geese, skunks, and squirrels.
[edit] External links
- Berry College web site
- Unofficial Berry Alumni site
- Berry Academy web site
- Bonner Foundation web site
- WinShape Foundation web site
- Berry College entry in New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Berry College Hunting Information
