About Macalester: Macalester's History

Macalester's History

Introduction

Macalester College's commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, a multicultural perspective, and community involvement is firmly rooted in its history.

Its founder intended Macalester to be one of the finest colleges in the country. His commitment to academic excellence has been reaffirmed in each decade since.

A strong international tradition, begun in the 1940s, flourishes today through the presence of international students and faculty, the incorporation of world issues into courses and campus events, and the deeply significant experience of study abroad.

Macalester also has a long history of deliberately seeking students and faculty from a variety of cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and students who will contribute actively to the college community.

The College's location in the heart of a lively and progressive metropolitan area provides a rich cultural and educational resource. Faculty members have become known for their use of Saint Paul and Minneapolis neighborhoods, businesses, cultural offerings and government leaders to augment classroom instruction. Likewise, students involve themselves in a variety of internship and volunteer experiences, and draw on the cities for wide-ranging social, cultural and recreational activities.

The Founding

Macalester College was opened at its present site on September 15, 1885. But long before that, the College's founder, The Rev. Dr. Edward Duffield Neill, had been carefully laying the groundwork to ensure its success. Neill was a remarkable man who believed strongly in the value of private education. A pioneer clergyman and educator in Minnesota from 1851 until his death in 1893, Dr. Neill was also instrumental in the development of public education in Minnesota, serving as the first Superintendent of Schools for the Territory and as Chancellor for the University of Minnesota. He was also the founding pastor of two St. Paul Presbyterian churches, House of Hope and First Presbyterian.

Macalester is the outgrowth of two academies also founded by Neill. One of these schools was founded in St. Paul in 1853; the other was established in Minneapolis in 1873, after Dr. Neill returned to Minnesota having served as secretary under President Abraham Lincoln. Both academies were named after M.W. Baldwin, a famous locomotive builder, who was a close friend of Dr. Neill and a financial supporter of his first educational undertaking. In 1873, Dr. Neill sought aid from Charles Macalester, a prominent businessman and philanthropist from Philadelphia, for the purpose of developing the Baldwin School into a college. Macalester donated a noted summer hotel at St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, known as the Winslow House. With that, the new institution was named Macalester College, and chartered by the Minnesota legislature in March 1874. Yet it would take a decade for the new college to establish an endowment, build a new campus, and enroll its first class.

In order to secure adequate endowment, Dr. Neill asked the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Minnesota to adopt Macalester as a denominational institution. On October 15, 1880, by action of the Synod, it came under Presbyterian control. The trustees of the College, in 1883, donated forty acres of land to the institution; they then sold the Winslow House and with the proceeds erected the original Old Main building in 1884 (the current Old Main was a larger wing added two years later). The same year, the Synod completed an endowment of $25,000 for the president's chair, and in 1885, the College was opened to students. When it opened, Macalester had five professors, six freshmen, and 52 preparatory students from Baldwin School. The College first admitted women in 1893. Between the years 1889 and 1898, the College graduated 100 students.

Dedicated Scholarship

The first few decades of the College were marked by the dedicated scholarship of its leaders. Especially notable were the efforts of Dr. James Wallace, who for 12 years, both as acting president from 1894 to 1900 and as president from 1900 to 1906, secured the College's lasting reputation for scholastic excellence in its programs and among the faculty and students. Moreover, Dr. Wallace as president made almost superhuman efforts to raise the money and secure the support necessary to keep the College alive during a period when financial hardships plagued it. Dr. Wallace joined the Macalester College faculty in 1887. Until shortly before his death in 1939, he taught religion, Greek and political science. As a scholar, teacher and friend to students, Wallace was without peer. His students left his classes with a sense of aspiration, a sense of dedication to serving humanity, and a sense of striving for the best. Throughout his years at Macalester, he epitomized the highest ideals of human service; a tradition to which the College has clung ever since.

Emerging Internationalism

The College struggled with the rest of the nation through the Depression years. The post World War II period found the College academically sound, sufficiently supported, and committed, under the leadership of President Charles J. Turck, to broadening its base of community service. To the stream of ministers and other professional men and women who had graduated from the College were added teachers, nurses, scientists, civil servants, and statesmen.

Dr. Turck also developed the College's focus on internationalism (another significant part of Macalester's make-up today)through programs for foreign students, overseas study opportunities, and the hiring of faculty from diverse backgrounds. Under Turck's leadership, the College also intensified its continuing interest in civic and national affairs.

During the 1940s, the Scottish heritage of the College's early benefactor, Charles Macalester, became a living force at the College. In 1948, the Chief of the Clan of MacAlister in Scotland, Lt. Colonel Charles Godfrey Summerville McAlister of Loup and Kennox, adopted the College into the Clan. Today, the College's student Pipe Band and Highland Dancers wear the authentic tartan of Clan MacAlister. Each May the College celebrates its Scottish heritage with the Scottish Country Fair featuring bagpipe competitions, highland dancing, ancient games of brawn, and Scottish foods. The sound of bagpipes is frequently heard on the campus during the warm months, reminding the College community of its links to Scotland.

Growth and Change

The decade of the 1960s brought a remarkable period of growth and change for the College. The generous gifts of many friends, especially of Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt Wallace, co-founders of the Reader's Digest and the College's major benefactors, enabled the College to advance markedly. Mr. Wallace, who died in 1981, was the son of President James Wallace and a member of the College's class of 1911.

During the presidency of Harvey M. Rice (1958-68), the College engaged in a concerted effort to strengthen its faculty, attract the best and brightest students, and enhance its instructional program.

To support those efforts, the College embarked on a major building campaign throughout the decade and into the 1970s. The Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center (named after the wife of Dr. Wallace and the mother of DeWitt Wallace) was completed in 1965, and still stands as one of the finest facilities of its kind for a small college as well as a focus for cultural events in the Twin Cities. Two new science buildings, equipped with the latest in scientific instruments and technology, were also among the best in the United States.

Late in the decade, the College began a program to extend the opportunity of a liberal arts education to students from low income and culturally diverse backgrounds a program that was acknowledged as one of the most ambitious and innovative in the nation. In the 1980s, while the college continued its commitment to a diverse campus community, the program itself was discontinued in favor of other approaches to achieve that goal.

Renewed Commitment

As on many campuses in the country, the early 1970s produced a period of change at Macalester. A self-study in 1975 led the College to recommit itself to its liberal arts curriculum and to reassert five traditional and distinguishing strengths: involvement of students with faculty in the pursuit of learning; involvement with a diversity of people; involvement in international issues; involvement in the life of the metropolitan area; and involvement in service.

Under the leadership of President John B. Davis, Jr., from 1975 to 1984, the College made significant advances in its endowment and scholarship programs as well as in scholastic achievement of its faculty and students. A new swimming pool and renovated gymnasium facilities opened in 1983, and a powerful new computer doubled the capacity for academic computing on campus.

Unprecedented Strength

The 1990s have been another turning point in Macalester's history. In 1991, the College's endowment became one of the largest among liberal arts colleges in the U.S., promising a financial stability that enables Macalester to pursue its high ideals with renewed vision.

Under the leadership of President Robert M. Gavin, Jr., the College pledged in 1985 and again in 1992 to assert its long-standing leadership in providing a liberal arts education of uncompromising academic quality an education which is characterized by international and multicultural perspectives and which seeks application to a life of service.

The College has very recently added a significant number of faculty positions while holding steady the size of the student body. This step is enabling the College to deepen the curriculum, enhance an already strong emphasis on faculty-student collaborative research and writing, and further diversify the perspectives represented in Macalester's educational program. The College is also increasing international study opportunities for both students and faculty, and strengthening co-curricular programs from athletics to residential life to community service.

The College's DeWitt Wallace Library, opened in September 1988, symbolizes both the academic and financial vigor of the College and a commitment to its finest traditions. The library was the first step in a comprehensive campus improvement program that involves renovating virtually every academic and residential building on campus as well as the athletic facilities, and building a new campus center.

These initiatives represent the College's commitment to be an educational leader. Its students and graduates are leaders, too. The evidence is in the academic distinctions they earn (Rhodes, Truman, Fulbright, Mellon and other fellowships, National Science Foundation grants, and the like) as well as in their significant contributions to their communities and their world.

Looking to the Future

Led by President Brian Rosenberg, Macalester College continues to seek the best possible ways to carry out its abiding commitments to academic excellence, to the education of capable students from the widest range of social and cultural backgrounds, and to an education that fits young people for a life of service in an increasingly interdependent world.