At the Morthland College graduation ceremonies on Saturday, alumni will be seated on stage in a place of honor.
But don’t count on that becoming a tradition.
“I doubt we can seat our alumni on stage in the future,” said College Vice President Emily Hayes, “but right now we just have the one graduate.”
Jessica Banks, that first graduate, will be joined by 14 more alumni this week, as Morthland College closes its fourth academic year.
College officials had to scramble last week to move the ceremony as 150 RSVPs came in. Graduation is now planned for 2 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church in West Frankfort, with a reception to follow at MC’s Washington Hall.
That kind of growth isn’t just pomp and circumstance.
Dorms to accommodate 70 students are being built by a private developer at the site of the former UMWA Hospital, and they are already full for the fall semester.
Enrollment, which reached 80 students this spring, is expected to nearly double in the fall.
“We’re at about 140 students right now,” Hayes said, and that is not taking into account the college’s newly launched online degree program, which has about 10 students in the applications and admissions process at the moment.
Dr. Ginger Stelle, dean of academic affairs, has “a drawer full of applications” from prospective faculty members.
Hayes is looking into where next year’s student body and staff — which will have outgrown the college’s 100-seat auditorium — can assemble for weekly chapel services, as well as determining where in the college’s current 56,000 square feet more classroom space might be found.
A donated library of tens of thousands of books will be catalogued and shelved this summer in Coleman-Rhoads Hall.
And the college, which currently has 50 full-time equivalent positions and additional part-time staff between MC and Morthland College Health Services, is adding support positions in student services and other areas to handle the influx of new students.
A regional student body
Of the 14 college graduates this year — one of whom actually graduated in December but is coming back to walk in the ceremony — three are classics majors and the remaining 11 have earned business administration degrees.
Two of the students have attended Morthland College since that first year, while the rest transferred in, some thanks to an articulation agreement with MidContinent University when it shut down last year.
Two of the graduates have played sports while at MC.
All of them call the Southern Illinois region home. That’s a trend that continues in the student body for next year.
“Most of our applications are coming from within a 100-mile radius,” Hayes said.
The Class of 2015 Valedictorian — Rachel Rabe — started at Morthland College in January 2012, and doesn’t plan to sever ties with MC anytime soon. She has accepted a job working in the college’s student services office this fall.
A classics major, Rabe successfully defended her thesis, The Quintessential Hero, last month.
The paper examines four aspects of a hero found in many different culture’s mythologies: strength, faithfulness, wisdom and self-sacrifice.
Rabe theorizes that these ideals of a hero exist across so many different cultures and times because they point to humanity’s only idea of perfection: the character of God.
‘Not a Bible college’
A thesis and an oral defense of it are a requirement for completion of a degree at Morthland College. It’s part of the faith-based, classical education the college espouses, which includes instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
“It’s not like I like to hear you speak in Latin,” said College President Dr. Tim Morthland. “The justification is to deconstruct and reconstruct a language and learn how the masters thought and wrote. This produces a lifelong scholar.”
Every student who is a not a Biblical Studies major earns a Biblical Studies minor while at the college, but Morthland points out the school is “not a Bible college.”
“It’s a common misconception,” he said. “We are a liberal arts college with a Biblical core and a classics core.”
Now that there is some student data on who succeeds in the curriculum Morthland describes as, in a word, intensive, the admissions team looks for a minimum ACT score of 20.
Those with an 18 or 19 can be granted a “provisional” admission status. With that, students are given more supervision and are required to meet with faculty during their first semester at the school, Stelle said.
Stelle, the dean who Hayes describes as unfailingly “pro-student,” said the provisional students can get extra help and advice, but no favors.
“We don’t give them anything,” she said. “We try to get them to tap into their own potential.”
Those provisional admission students who complete a semester with at least a 2.0 grade point average at Morthland College are then granted full admission.
Seeking recognition
Full acceptance is “a real and present problem” facing the growing school, Morthland said.
Questions about MC’s financial viability and the recognition of its credits and degrees remain in the minds of many community members.
That talk as the school was getting off the ground is something Morthland acknowledges.
“Funding this was like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It was tough.” he told the boards of trustees from John A. Logan, Rend Lake, Southeastern Illinois and Shawnee Community colleges at a recent meeting where he was the invited keynote speaker.
“You try raising funds by reaching out to your alumni base of zero,” Morthland quipped to the group.
Full accreditation by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools in 2014, as well as recognition by the U.S. Department of Education that makes Morthland College students eligible for federal student aid, has resulted in increased enrollment and more private donations.
And recognition by other universities is starting to build.
The college’s December graduate is now pursuing a master’s degree at Southeast Missouri State University, which means — college officials are quick to point out — that SEMO has recognized the bachelor’s degree awarded by Morthland College.
Still, Morthland College has national accreditation, while many traditional colleges — including area public institutions such as John A. Logan College and Southern Illinois University — have regional accreditation, and credits don’t automatically transfer between the two.
Morthland and Hayes said they are hopeful that articulation agreements can be reached with area colleges soon.
“There’s a new day when it comes to accreditation and new colleges,” said John A. Logan College President Mike Dreith, who recently made the decision to allow Morthland College to recruit transfer students on JALC campuses.
‘It’s fascinating’
But with all the future plans, Hayes is not losing sight of the celebration this weekend.
“It’s a particularly large milestone,” she said.
The academic chairs over the classics and business administration departments will usher their students in.
MC’s traditional “Pilgrim’s Hymn” will be sung, and there will be a reading in Greek, Hebrew or Latin during the hourlong ceremony, which will include addresses by Valedictorian Rabe and President Morthland.
“It will be nice to do it with a larger body of students this time,” Hayes said.
A dessert reception will be held at the college’s Washington Hall following the ceremony. For some parents and families, Hayes noted, it will be the first visit to the college’s campus.
Sometime after graduation day, another sign of growth will take shape, as the college launches its first alumni office.
And then it will be time to prepare for a new, larger crop of students in August, when the traditions will be repeated at a school year-opening convocation.
“They put together a new college in our district from scratch,” said JALC President Dreith, when introducing Morthland to the regional boards of trustees gathered at his Carterville campus for that meeting last month. “He has to worry about everything … will they show up in the fall? I think it’s fascinating.”
