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Presbyterian College

Former names	Clinton College (1880–1904)
Motto	Dum Vivimus Servimus
Motto in English	While We Live, We Serve
Type	Private liberal arts college
Established	1880; 145 years ago (1880)
Religious affiliation	Presbyterian
Academic affiliations	APCU Annapolis Group CIC SACSCOC
Endowment	$95.6 million (2022)
President	Anita Gustafson
Provost	Kerry Pannell
Academic staff	102 full-time
Students	1,199 (Fall, 2022)
Undergraduates	955
Postgraduates	244
Location	Clinton, South Carolina, United States 34°27′52″N 81°52′12″W / 34.46444°N 81.87000°W / 34.46444; -81.87000
Campus	Small town 240-acre
Nickname	Blue Hose
Sporting affiliations	NCAA Division I – Big South Pioneer Football League
Website	presby.edu

Presbyterian College (PC) is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, South Carolina. Rev. William Plumer Jacobs founded PC as Clinton College in 1880 so that the children from his Thornwell Orphanage could continue their education at a proper college. The college was coeducational from the beginning, with three women in its first graduating class in 1883. A charter in 1890 changed the name of Clinton College to Presbyterian College of South Carolina.

PC's undergraduate program enrolls approximately 1000 students. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers more than 80 majors and minors and eight pre-professional programs. PC's three graduate programs in the health sciences help meet the healthcare needs of the community. The Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy offers a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. The Physician Assistant Program offers a Master of Physician Assistant Studies, while the Occupational Therapy Program offers a Doctor of Occupational Therapy.

PC's 240-acre campus is in Clinton, a college town in the Upstate of South Carolina. PC is conveniently positioned approximately 40 miles from Greenville, 30 miles from Spartanburg, and 60 miles from Columbia.

The campus of Presbyterian College is unified around a central mall, which includes four grassy plazas surrounded by stately red-brick buildings of Georgian and Neoclassical design. The layout provides academic space, dining facilities, student housing, recreational areas, and athletic venues. Six campus buildings are part of the Thornwell-Presbyterian College Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The campus is beautifully maintained and has newly renovated buildings.

Presbyterian College holds a Carnegie classification as a Baccalaureate College with an Arts & Sciences Focus and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges of Schools Commission on Colleges. PC has been recognized for its commitment to making a college education accessible. The U.S. News & World Report ranked PC #108 for social mobility and #124 nationally.

The Center for First-Generation Student Success designated PC as one of the country’s “First-Gen Forward” institutions, which acknowledges higher education institutions for their commitment to first-generation student success. PC is one of only seven colleges and universities in South Carolina to be recognized as a College of Distinction. The honor acknowledges PC's excellence in the areas of student engagement, teaching, community, and successful outcomes.

Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), PC embraces its church-relatedness while welcoming students, faculty, and administrators of all faiths, identities, and backgrounds. The college encourages and nurtures Presbyterian values such as service, grace, pluralism, justice, and hospitality. The PC motto is "While We Live, We Serve," and efforts to serve others is evidenced in programs like the Service Entrepreneurship Competition, the largest of its kind in the nation.

PC is a diverse community that encourages everyone on campus to broaden their horizons and realize the inherent dignity and worth of every individual. The college’s efforts to champion diversity and inclusion is evidenced by the implementation of a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion division.

Nearly all students live on campus, and all students are required to intern, conduct research, or study abroad. The college's athletics teams, the Blue Hose, compete in the Big South Conference, an NCAA Division I conference, with two exceptions. The football team plays in the Pioneer League, while the men's wrestling team competes in the Southern Conference.

Prominent alumni of Presbyterian College include notable football coaches, including the winningest high school football coach; U.S. Senators, attorneys, and federal officials; decorated military servicemen, including a Medal of Honor recipient; scholars and distinguished members of the clergy.

History

Presbyterian College was founded in 1880 by William Plumer Jacobs. He had served as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Clinton since 1864 and founded the Thornwell Orphanage. Originally called Clinton College, its first class (including three women) graduated in 1883. In establishing PC, his "tree of knowledge", Jacobs' goal was to educate young people for lives of service to church and society, and thereby be, in his words, "epistles to Christ's honor and glory".

By the time of Jacobs' death in 1917, the college had grown considerably in size and resources, and had six major buildings. Neville Hall, PC's most recognized structure, was constructed in 1907. The tenure of president Davison McDowell Douglas (1911–1926) saw the tripling of the size of the faculty and student body, the construction of four new buildings, and growth in the college's assets from $150,000 to over $1 million. After weathering the storms of the Great Depression and Second World War, Presbyterian has continued expansion on many fronts through the second half of the twentieth century. It became fully coeducational in 1965 (and in so doing dropped its previous motto, "Where Men are Made"). In 1969, it began admitting African-American students.

Academics

Undergraduate

Presbyterian College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The School of the Liberal Arts confers B.A. and B.S. degrees in 30 courses of study and 9 pre-professional programs including Pre-Law, Pre-Med, Pre-Theology, and Pre-Pharmacy. PC also offers a dual-degree program in Engineering (with Clemson University, Auburn University, Georgia Tech, the University of South Carolina, and Vanderbilt University) and minor fields in an additional 13 disciplines such as Africana Studies, Media Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. The liberal arts program has small average class sizes (13-15 students). Beginning in 1991, six Presbyterian College faculty members have been declared Carnegie/CASE South Carolina Professor of the Year Award winners.

PC houses a Center for South Korean and East Asian Studies, which is partnered with Hannam University. Hannam and PC have been affiliated with each other since Hannam's inception, when it was founded by 1949 PC alumnus John Somerville.

Graduate

The School of Pharmacy confers Doctor of Pharmacy degrees (PharmD) and is oriented toward serving the healthcare needs of underdeveloped and economically depressed areas of South Carolina and the greater US. A 54,000 square-foot facility, its doors opened in the fall of 2010 with an inaugural class of 80 students. The School of Pharmacy was fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) in July 2014. Despite its youth, it has accrued multiple awards including a Biomedical/Biobehavioral Research Administration Development (BRAD) grant from the National Institutes of Health, and a Generation Rx Champion Award from the South Carolina Pharmacy Association (SCPhA) for its efforts at raising awareness of prescription drug abuse.

Student life

Size and makeup

The 2014 edition of U.S. News & World Report regards Presbyterian College as a "selective" institution that accepted 57.8% of applicants in the fall of 2012. Of PC's 1,172 undergraduates, 44% are male and 56% are female, and 97% live on campus.

Student organizations

Students at PC have many options for extracurricular activities. In addition to intramural athletics, Greek life is an important part of campus life and culture, as around 45% of the student body is affiliated with one of eight fraternities and sororities. For men, there are seven North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) organizations (chapter designation in Greek letters): Alpha Sigma Phi (ΑΨ), Kappa Alpha Order (ΒΠ), Pi Kappa Alpha (Μ), Pi Kappa Phi (Β), since removed from campus and had their charter revoked. Sigma Nu (ΖΘ), Omega Psi Phi (ΑΔΩ), and Theta Chi (ΒΨ). For women, there are three National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations: Alpha Delta Pi (ΗΞ), Sigma Sigma Sigma (ΕΠ), and Zeta Tau Alpha (ΚΒ). Aside from Greek life, PC offers its students many other social clubs and advocacy organizations like Secular Student Alliance, College Republicans, College Democrats, and Multicultural Student Union. There are also many religious ministries, including the Presbyterian Student Association, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Campus Outreach. Finally, Presbyterian actively promotes service organizations and opportunities. Many PC students participate in initiatives like Special Olympics, Relay for Life, tutoring local high school and middle school students, and CHAMPS, a mentoring service for local youth.

Honor code

Since 1915 all aspects of life at Presbyterian have been regulated by a student-run honor code. The signing of the honor code is a central fixture of each academic year's opening convocation ceremony and is a requirement for all incoming students, faculty, and coaches. The honor code binds one to "abstain from all deceit," to "neither give nor receive unacknowledged aid in academic work," to "respect the persons and property of the community" and to "not condone discourteous or dishonest treatment of these by peers." Suspected violations of the honor code go before the college's honor council, composed of students and faculty, which has the power to sanction, suspend, or dismiss those found guilty.

Campus

PC's 240-acre campus covers areas in and around Clinton, providing academic buildings, dining facilities, recreational areas, and athletics venues. The college's 15 townhouses, 11 residence halls, and 9 apartments house nearly all of the undergraduate student body. Six buildings on Presbyterian College's campus (Doyle Hall, Laurens Hall, Jacobs Hall, the President's House, Neville Hall, and the campus bell tower) are part of the Thornwell-Presbyterian College Historic District, a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, Doyle Hall was demolished in July 2014 as part of the renovations for Georgia Hall.

Athletics

Athletics is very important to PC's life and culture. Around 1/3 of the student body competes as student-athletes and many PC alumni are or were professional coaches at the college level, including current women's soccer coach Brian Purcell ('87), former head football coach Harold Nichols ('89), former Vanderbilt basketball head coach Roy Skinner ('52), and Bob Waters ('60), a record-setting head football coach at Western Carolina.

Presbyterian is a member of the Big South Conference of NCAA Division I and fields seventeen varsity teams in eleven sports: football (FCS), men's and women's cross country, volleyball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, softball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's tennis, women's lacrosse, baseball, and men's and women's wrestling. Football has competed within the FCS conference Pioneer Football League since 2021. The college's colors are royal blue and garnet and its teams are known as the Blue Hose. Although PC's mascot Scottie the Scotsman is a medieval Scottish warrior, the Blue Hose name originally referred to the socks worn by the football team in the early 20th century. PC's traditional rivals include Wofford College, Furman University, The Citadel, and Newberry College.

Since 1953, the Atlantic Coast Conference has awarded the Jacobs Blocking Trophy in honor of the memory of PC's founder, William P. Jacobs, to the conference's most outstanding blocker, as voted by a poll of the conference's head coaches and defensive coordinators. The 2022 recipient is Clemson University graduate student-athlete Jordan McFadden.

The Bronze Derby

Until 2007, PC's fierce rivalry with Newberry College was expressed in the annual Bronze Derby football game, named for the series's trophy, which made its debut in 1947 after a basketball game between the two colleges. After the game, which PC won 51–47, a scuffle broke out between supporters of both colleges and a derby hat was snatched from the head of a PC student. The hat was eventually returned, cast in bronze, and transformed into a symbol of the rivalry. The last installment of the Bronze Derby game was played in November 2006 at Bailey Memorial Stadium in Clinton, where PC defeated Newberry 10–0. The Blue Hose lead the all-time Bronze Derby series, but since Presbyterian's transition to Division I in 2007 the annual clash has been postponed indefinitely.

Notable alumni

• Art Baker; former head football coach at Furman University (1973–1977), The Citadel (1977–1982), and East Carolina University (1985–1988)
• Justin Bethel; NFL Pro Bowl defensive back for the Atlanta Falcons
• William Bradley Bryant, JD; superintendent of public schools state of Georgia
• John Bright; Cyrus H. McCormick Chair of Hebrew and Old Testament Interpretation, Union Theological Seminary; American biblical scholar; author A History of Israel; listed notable alumni Union Presbyterian Seminary
• Glen Browder; member of the Alabama House of Representatives (1982–1986), Secretary of State, State of Alabama (1987–1989), member of the US House of Representatives (1989–1997), professor emeritus of political science, Jacksonville State University
• Bill Cowsert, attorney, Georgia State Senator
• Harry S. Dent, Sr.; attorney, aide to U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond and U.S. President Richard Nixon
• Joan Gray; Moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
• Kimberly Nicole Hampton (1976–2004); Captain in the United States Army and the first female US military pilot to be shot down and killed by hostile fire
• Stephen A. Hayner; president of Columbia Theological Seminary, ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church USA, professor, former president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
• C. Hugh Holman (1914–1981); American literary scholar.
• Tammy Susan Hurt; vice chair of the board of trustees at the Recording Academy
• Grant C. Jaquith; American lawyer and judge
• Douglas Kiker (1930–1991); journalist and author, NBC News national-affairs correspondent; anchor, NBC Nightly News; NBC News Rome bureau chief (Europe and Western Asia); White House correspondent, the New York Herald Tribune; Peabody Award, Columbia University's prize for broadcast journalism
• George L. Mabry, Jr.; US Army Major General, Medal of Honor recipient
• Charles B. MacDonald; former US Army Captain, US Army Deputy Chief Historian, and author of renowned WWII memoir Company Commander
• John McKissick; head football coach at Summerville High School (SC), the record holder for most career wins in high school football
• Allen Morris; tennis player, 1956 U.S. Davis Cup team member, quarter-finalist at Wimbledon; former head tennis coach, UNC Chapel Hill (1980–1993); inductee, North Carolina and South Carolina Tennis Halls of Fame
• Bebo Norman; contemporary Christian musician
• Jim Samples; president of HGTV
• Ernest Shahid; businessman and real estate developer
• Roy Skinner (1930–2010); former head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball team
• Bob Staton; 18th president of Presbyterian College, and former chairman and CEO of Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company
• Tyson Summers; American college football coach, head coach of the Georgia Southern University football team
• Jimmie Turner; former professional football player
• Theodore Wardlaw; president and professor of homiletics, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
• Bob Waters; former head football coach and athletic director at Western Carolina University
• Lee Williamson; former professional football player

References

1. "History of Presbyterian College". presby.edu. Presbyterian College. Retrieved June 28, 2022.
2. As of June 30, 2022. U.S. and Canadian Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year 2022 Endowment Market Value and Change in Endowment Market Value from FY21 to FY22 (Report). National Association of College and University Business Officers and TIAA. October 5, 2023. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
3. "20th President of Presbyterian College". presby.edu. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
4. "Kerry Pannell named new provost at Presbyterian College". Presbyterian College. April 27, 2021. Retrieved September 22, 2022.
5. Nancy Griffith, Presbyterian College (Arcadia: Charleston, Portsmouth, Chicago, San Francisco, 2001), 7.
6. Nancy Griffith, Presbyterian College (Arcadia: Charleston, Portsmouth, Chicago, San Francisco, 2001), 15.
7. Griffith (2001), Presbyterian College, pp. 16, 20–21.
8. ^ "About Presbyterian College". presby.edu.
9. "catalog 2012-2013" (PDF). pp. 34, 43, 49. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
10. "Academics at Presbyterian College". presby.edu. July 6, 2017.
11. "Presbyterian College launches Center for South Korean and East Asian Studies". www.presby.edu. May 20, 2023. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
12. "Breaking News: Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy's Doctor of Pharmacy Program is Accredited". presby.edu. Archived from the original on November 12, 2014. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
13. "PCSP APhA-ASP wins Generation Rx Champion Award". presby.edu. Archived from the original on August 16, 2013.
14. "School Receives First NIH Grant". presby.edu. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
15. "US". U.S. News & World Report: Education, Colleges, National Liberal Arts Colleges. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
16. ^ "Campus Life at Presbyterian College". presby.edu. Archived from the original on September 13, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
17. "CHAMPS - Communities Helping, Assisting, Mentoring Promising Students". pc-champs.org. Archived from the original on September 5, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
18. "Blue Book" (PDF). presby.edu. pp. 2 of 16. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
19. "Campus Life at Presbyterian College". presby.edu. Archived from the original on October 28, 2013. Retrieved October 29, 2013.
20. "Blue Book" (PDF). presby.edu. pp. 4, 5, 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
21. "About Presbyterian College". presby.edu. July 18, 2013.
22. "Presbyterian". bigsouthsports.com.
23. "Presbyterian College Blue Hose - The Official Athletics Site". gobluehose.com.
24. "What's the deal with ... Presbyterian Coll.?". ESPN.com. September 6, 2012.
25. "About Presbyterian College". presby.edu. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
26. "Clemson's McFadden Earns ACC Jacobs Blocking Trophy". November 28, 2022. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
27. "Glen Browder outline resume" (PDF). January 1, 2007. Retrieved May 18, 2012.
28. "PC(USA) – 217th General Assembly (2006) – Atlanta pastor is elected moderator". Presbyterian Church (USA). June 15, 2006. Archived from the original on September 25, 2011. Retrieved May 18, 2012.
29. "Collection Title: C. Hugh Holman Papers (#4537) 1930s-1980s". Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Library Special Collections. UNC University Libraries. Retrieved March 4, 2017.
30. Slotnick, Daniel E. (October 30, 2010). "Roy Skinner, Who Recruited First Black Basketball Player in SEC, Dies at 80". The New York Times. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
31. "Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary". Austinseminary.edu. Retrieved May 18, 2012.

External links

• Official website
• Presbyterian College Athletics website

• Presbyterian College
• Private universities and colleges in South Carolina
• Education in Laurens County, South Carolina
• Liberal arts colleges in South Carolina
• Universities and colleges established in 1880
• Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
• Universities and colleges affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA)
• Presbyterian universities and colleges in the United States
• Presbyterian Church (USA)
• Buildings and structures in Laurens County, South Carolina
• 1880 establishments in South Carolina