JAMESTOWN COLLEGE

'Jamestown College' is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church located in Jamestown, North Dakota. It has about 1,000 students enrolled today and was co-educational from its founding.

Contents

History

1980s - Low Ebb

Renaissance

Recent Developments

Notable alumni

Notable former faculty

External links

History

Jamestown College was founded in 1883 - and closed fairly quickly, during the depression of 1893. The school reopened in 1909 and has remained open ever since.
Jamestown College has been notable for three things; its athletics, its science and nursing programs, and its choir. In 1979, Jamestown's football team went to the NAIA Division 3 National Championships.
Jamestown's pre-medical students have long-standing tradition of higher than average medical school acceptance rates.
In 1972 the college's choir - directed by Richard Harrison Smith, and for decades one of the top small-college choirs in the United States - became the first American choir to sing at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, an honor they repeated four more times during the 1970s and 1980s. The choir continues to tour Europe every four years, with their most recent tour in May 2006 to Italy where the choir received the honor of singing at the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

1980s - Low Ebb

In the mid-1980s, a difficult farm economy, along with alleged mismanagement by several former college administration officials, led the college into difficult times; in 1986, the school graduated 92 students, had a full-time enrollment of only 500 students, and reportedly came within 24 hours of closing its doors. A few 11th-hour donations and some radical restructuring brought the college back from the brink.

Renaissance

Today, after nearly twenty years of aggressive fundraising, the school has nearly triple the students, and has been able to embark on a large building program to replace some of the buildings (which in many cases dated from the college's original heyday in the 1920s.

Recent Developments

Jamestown College has recently added many new building to the campus, including:

★ residence halls for upperclassmen

★ renovations to the nursing program building, featuring a state of the art simulated Intensive Care Unit.

★ the Unruh and Sheldon Center, home to the college's Business, Accounting and Economics, and Computer Science and Technology departments. This building is one of the most wired and high-tech buildings in the midwest; construction of the $4.5 million building was completed in the summer of 2006 using gifts from Jim Unruh and Agnes (Sheldon) Griffin.
The next addition to the campus, opening at the start of the Fall 2007 semester, will be the Ed and Elaine Nafus Student Center. An addition to Westminster Hall, the existing student-activities and food service center dating to 1957, major features include a two-story atrium entrance, an open commons area for students, a new coffee lounge, and full handicap-accessibility.
A recent addition to the JC curriculum as of the 2006-07 school year is the "Character in Leadership" program, giving entering freshmen the ability to receive a minor in leadership.

Notable alumni

★ Richard Armey, former U.S. Congressman from Texas (R), is a 1962 graduate of Jamestown College.

★ Barbara McClintock (1976), award-winning illustrator of children's books;

★ Louis L'Amour (1972: Honorary PhD), internationally-renowned Western author;

★ Carol Jolin (1975), musician, recording artist, and former arranger and conductor for Bobby Vinton and Barry Manilow;

★ Mick Wagner (1975), renowned choral arranger and Nationally-known jazz DJ.
Incidentally, McClintock, Jolin and Wagner were all members of the award-winning Jamestown College Concert Choir at the same time.

Notable former faculty

★ Richard Harrison Smith (director of the Concert Choir from 1969 to 1989, during which time it was the first American choir to sing at Paris' Cathedral of Notre Dame), an acclaimed writer and arranger of modern choral music;

★ Robert Scriba, one of the country's leading authorities on Asian theatre and music.

External links

★ Jamestown College