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Washington and Lee University

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Washington and Lee University
WLU crest
MottoNon Incautus Futuri
("Not Unmindful of the Future")
TypePrivate
Established1749
PresidentKenneth P. Ruscio (since July 1, 2006)
Undergraduates1,755
Postgraduates406
Location
Lexington
,
Virginia
,
USA
CampusNational Historic Landmark, 325 acres
Team name"The Generals"
ColorsRoyal Blue and White
Websitewww.wlu.edu

Washington and Lee University is a private liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia. It is known for its close student-teacher relationships, curricular breadth, strong traditions, and excellence in Division III athletics.

The classical school from which Washington and Lee is descended was established in 1749 as Augusta Academy about 20 miles north of its present location. In 1776 it was renamed Liberty Hall in a burst of revolutionary fervor. The academy moved to Lexington in 1780, when it was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy, and built its first facility near town in 1782.

In 1796, George Washington endowed it with the largest gift ever given to a college (at the time), rescuing it from near-certain insolvency. In gratitude, the trustees changed the school's name to Washington Academy; it was subsequently chartered as Washington College. Robert E. Lee was its highly influential president after the Civil War until his death in 1870, after which the school was renamed Washington and Lee University.

Today the university has about 1,750 undergraduate students and 400 in the School of Law. Both the undergraduate and law schools are in the top 25 rankings of U.S. News and World Report (2007) for national liberal arts universities and law schools, respectively.

The row of brick buildings that form the Front Campus, which trace to 1824, is a National Historic Landmark. Separately, the Lee Chapel is also a National Historic Landmark.

Washington and Lee's motto is Non incautus futuri, meaning "Not unmindful of the future." It is an adaptation of the Lee family motto.

For the class of 2009, Washington and Lee accepted about 29 percent of those who applied, and the successful applicant had a median SAT of 1390 (Verbal+Math). The student-faculty ratio is 11:1. There are no graduate or teaching assistants; every course is taught by a faculty member.

A quarter of undergraduates participate in varsity athletics, three-quarters in club or intramural programs. There are more than 120 student organizations and publications, and approximately three-quarters of undergraduates belong to fraternities or sororities. According to The Princeton Review, Washington and Lee proves the truth of the cliché about students who work hard and play hard. In that publication's 2007 edition, Washington and Lee scores 4th in "professors get high marks" and 6th in professors' accessibility. The University ranks 2nd in prevalence of beer, and 4th in hard liquor. Combining academics with the party culture, Washington and Lee ranked 14th in "Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates." Citing many of these statistics, Men's Health named Washington and Lee one of the 10 most male-friendly colleges in America.

W&L is a member of the Associated Colleges of the South.

Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia

Academics

Washington and Lee is divided into three schools: (1) The College, where all undergraduates begin their studies, encompassing the liberal arts, humanities and hard sciences, with a notable emphasis in pre-medical and pre-law studies; (2) the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics, which offers majors in accounting and business administration, business administration, economics, politics, and public accounting; and (3) the School of Law, which offers Juris Doctor and Master of Laws degrees.

In all, more than 1,000 undergraduate courses are taught. The undergraduate library has more than 700,000 volumes (and a vast electronic network). The law library has more than 400,000 volumes (and ditto).

Washington and Lee offers 40 undergraduate majors and additional non-major interdisciplinary programs in African-American studies, East Asian studies, environmental studies and Russian area studies. No minors are available. Washington and Lee also hosts the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability.

Despite refusing to provide information for the publication, the university was ranked highly by the Princeton Review in its 2006 edition of The Best 357 Colleges for "Best Overall Academic Experience," "Professors Get High Marks," and Professor Accessibility. It is 17th in the U.S. News and World Report's ranking of national liberal arts institutions and 25th in the 2007 US News ranking of law schools.

The undergraduate calendar is an unusual three-term system with 12-week fall and winter terms followed by a required six-week spring term, though a Spring Option to be absent from campus was recently approved by the faculty. The spring-term courses include topical often-unique seminars, faculty-supervised study abroad, and some domestic and international internships. The law calendar consists of the more traditional early-semester system.

History

Liberty Hall Academy became a college when it granted its first bachelor of arts degree in 1785, making it the ninth oldest institution of higher education in the country. George Washington gave the school its first significant endowment in 1796, $50,000, at the time the largest gift ever given to an educational institution in the United States, and Washington's gift continues to provide nearly $3 a year toward every student's tuition. Trustees changed the name of the school to Washington Academy, and later Washington College, to honor him.

Liberty Hall is said to have admitted its first African-American student when John Chavis, a free black, enrolled in 1795. Chavis accomplished much in his life including fighting in the American Revolution, studying at both Liberty Hall and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), becoming an ordained Presbyterian minister, and opening a school that instructed white and poor black students in North Carolina. He is believed to be the first black student to have earned a degree in the United States. Washington and Lee enrolled its next African-American student in 1966. [citation needed]

The Lee Years

After the American Civil War, General Robert E. Lee turned down several financially tantalizing offers of employment that would merely have traded on his name, and instead accepted the post of college president for three reasons. First, he had been superintendent of West Point, so higher education was in his background. Second, and more important, he believed that it was a position in which he could actually make a contribution to the reconciliation of the nation. Third, the Washington family were his in-laws: his wife was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. Lee had long looked on George Washington as a hero and role model, so it is hardly surprising that he welcomed the challenge of leading a college endowed by and named after the first president.

Arguably Lee's finest achievement was transforming a small, not particularly distinguished Latin academy into a forward-looking institution of higher education ("not unmindful of the future"). He established the first school of professional journalism education in the country and he added both a business school and a law school to the college curriculum, under the conviction that those occupations should be intimately and inextricably linked with the liberal arts. That was a radical idea; journalism and law had always been considered technical crafts, not intellectual endeavors, and business was even worse. Yet Lee's concept has become universally accepted, and today it would seem subversive if anyone suggested that education in journalism, business and law should be kept separate from the liberal arts and sciences.

Lee was also the father of an Honor System and a speaking tradition at Washington College that continue to the present time. And, ardent about restoring national unity, he successfully recruited students from the north as well as the south.

Lee died on October 12, 1870, after just five years as Washington College president. The school's name was almost immediately changed to link his with Washington's. His son, George Washington Custis Lee, followed as the school's next president. General Lee; his wife; his son; his father, the Revolutionary War hero "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and much of the rest of the Lee family are buried in the Lee Chapel on campus, which faces the main row of antebellum college buildings. Robert E. Lee's beloved horse, Traveller, is buried near the wall of the Chapel.

Honor System

Washington and Lee maintains a rigorous Honor System that traces directly to Robert E. Lee, who said, "We have but one rule here, and it is that every student must be a gentleman." Students, upon entering the university, vow to act honorably in academic and nonacademic endeavors. While "honor" is often interpreted as meaning that they will never lie, cheat or steal, the Honor System actually proscribes whatever behavior the current generation of students decides is dishonorable.

The Honor System has been run by the student body since 1906. Any student found guilty of an honor violation by his or her peers is subject to a single penalty: expulsion. Faculty, administration and even trustees are powerless; the Honor System is defined and administered solely by students, and there is no higher review. Referenda are held every three academic years to gauge each generation's appetite to maintain the Honor System and its single penalty, and the students always re-ratify the Honor System by a wide margin.

Washington and Lee's Honor System is distinct from others such as those found at the neighboring Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia because it is not codified. That is to say, unlike those others, Washington and Lee's does not have a list of rules that define punishable behavior.

The Honor System encompasses fundamental honesty and integrity. Other disciplinary frameworks exist to address lapses of social and behavioral standards that do not fall into the category of a student's basic honor. (If you cheat on an exam or take a book from the library without checking it out, it's an honor violation. If you go 55 in a 50-mph-zone, it isn't.)

As a result, a sense of trust and safety pervades the community. The faculty and staff always take students at their word (and indeed, local merchants accept their checks without question; many also extend credit). Exams at W&L are ordinarily unproctored and self-scheduled. It is not unusual for professors to assign take-home, closed-book finals with an explicit trust in their students not to cheat.

The Honor System clearly works. In most years, a few students are expelled after hearings conducted by the Executive Committee, which is the University's elected student government (with the accused usually counseled by law students). Recently, expulsions have ranged from 8 in the 2003-04 school year to a more modest 2 in the 2004-05 year. Students found guilty can appeal the verdict to the entire student body, although this daunting option is not often exercised.

Alumni of note

  • H. F. Lenfest '53 — philanthropist and CEO of Lenfest Group; gave 2nd largest donation in W&L's history ($33 million) on March 21, 2007
  • William E. Brock '53 — former Senator from Tennessee (1971-77), chairman of the National Republican Party (1977-81), U.S. Trade Representative (1981-85), and Secretary of Labor (1985-87)
  • Paul Maslansky '54 — producer of the "Police Academy" movie series, among other films
  • Terry Brooks '69 (law) — Author of fantasy fiction; 12 million copies in print
  • Alex S. Jones '68 — Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-reporter for the New York Times; co-author, with wife Susan Tifft, of the definitive biographies of the Binghams and Sulzbergers, who created historic newspaper dynasties in, respectively, Louisville and New York; now head of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
  • Sydney Lewis '40 — founder of Best Products, which invented the big-box retail concept; recipient with his wife, Frances, in 1987, of the National Medal of the Arts
  • Bill Miller '72 — president and chief investment officer of Legg Mason (now a unit of Citicorp); the most successful fund manager in the business today (his Value Trust has beaten the S&P 500 Index for 15 straight years and counting), responsible for $22 billion in assets
  • Donald D. Hook '50 — Professor emeritus at Trinity College, Hartford; author of "Madmen of History" and "Clerical Failure."

In total, 27 alumni have served in the United States Senate, 67 have served in the United States House of Representatives, 31 have served as governor of a state, and four have served as Supreme Court Justices.

Student activities

File:WashingtonAndLeeTrident.GIF
Washington and Lee's Trident Athletic Logo

The school's teams are known as "The Generals" and compete in NCAA Division III in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The student body is relatively conservative in its political outlook compared to most elite colleges and universities. Every four years, the school sponsors the Washington and Lee Mock Convention for whichever political party (Democratic or Republican) does not hold the Presidency. The Convention receives gavel-to-gavel coverage on C-SPAN and attention from many other national media outlets.

Demographics

Washington and Lee was all male until 1972, when women were admitted to the law school; the first female undergraduates enrolled in 1985. This anomaly survived as long as it did largely because, within an hour's drive of Washington and Lee, a large number of all-women's colleges existed (and still do): Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg (although this college recently became co-ed and changed its name to Randolph College), Sweet Briar College, just north of Lynchburg, Hollins University near Roanoke, and Mary Baldwin College in Staunton.

As of 2005, the University is 49% female, 51% male. [1] In 2006, the number of women receiving diplomas exceeded the number of men for the first time in the school's history.

The University has also attempted to increase the number of minority faculty and students. The student body, once totally white, has steadily diversified. The proportion of white students is now slightly below 87%. [2]

The university's students have generally been known for conservative politics. In recent years, however, the campus has become far more diverse in its political thought. Groups like Campus Democrats and GSA (W&L's Gay-Straight Alliance) are active, the Office of Multicultural Affairs is recruiting a more racially and religiously diverse student body, and speakers like Spike Lee fill the seats of Lee Chapel. The faculty and curriculum reflect a strong global and progressive consciousness, as evidenced by the strength of unique curricular options such as the Shepherd Poverty Program.

Fraternities and sororities

Greek letter organizations play a major role in Washington and Lee's social scene. The following is a list of active, recognized fraternities and sororities.

Fraternities

Dormant fraternity chapters at Washington and Lee also include Beta Theta Pi (Chapter is planning to return in the 2007-2008 academic year), Alpha Tau Omega, Chi Phi, Delta Tau Delta, Psi Upsilon and Zeta Beta Tau.

Sororities

Sidelights

"The Washington and Lee Swing" is one of the most well known — and widely borrowed — football marches ever written, according to Lissauer's Encyclopedia of Popular Music in America. (Here is an audio excerpt from a 1944 recording by Jan Garber, a prominent dance-band leader of the era.) The "Swing" was parodied in "The Dummy Song" by Ray Brown and Lew Henderson (who also wrote "Birth of the Blues," "Bye Bye Blackbird," "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries." "You're the Cream in My Coffee" and "Keep Your Skirts Down, Mary Ann"). "Dummy" was recorded by NRBQ, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Glenn Miller's vocal jazz group, the Modernaires, among many others, and was used in the movie You've Got Mail.

The noted British writer John Cowper Powys once called W&L the "most beautiful college campus in America."

A Washington and Lee art history professor, Pamela Hemenway Simpson, in 1999 wrote the only scholarly book on linoleum, giving it the sublime title Cheap, Quick and Easy. The book also examines other home-design materials once used by the lower classes to emulate their betters.

"On Borrowed Time" by Professor Lawrence Edward Watkin (1937) was turned into an exceedingly sentimental but successful Broadway play. Watkin's next novel, "Geese in the Forum" (1940), was an allegory about campus politics (the geese were the faculty), and soon thereafter he left academia for Hollywood, where he wrote screenplays for Disney.

Washington and Lee is home to perhaps the finest collection of 18th- and 19th-century Chinese and European porcelain in America, the gift of Euchlin Dalcho Reeves, an eccentric 1927 graduate of the law school, and his well-matched wife, Louise Herreshoff. In 1967, Mr. Reeves contacted Washington and Lee about making "a small gift," which turned out to be a collection of porcelain so vast that it filled two entire houses which he and his wife owned in Providence, R.I. A number of dirt-covered picture frames, found in the two houses, were put on the van along with the porcelain. Soon it was discovered that the frames actually contained Impressionist-like paintings created by Louise as a young woman in the early days of the century. Mrs. Reeves had, it turned out, been a painter of stupendous talent, certified when in 1976 the Corcoran Gallery in Washington mounted a posthumous one-woman exhibition of her works. Their story is helped by the fact that he ("Boy") was almost 30 years younger than she ("Dol").

In 1913 a New York advertising executive and avid Civil War buff, Robert Doremus, and his wife visited the campus. A student came up to them and asked if he might show them around. The Doremuses were so impressed at this spontaneous act of friendliness that they bequeathed almost $1.5 million to the University, although they had no other connection to it. Today, Doremus Gymnasium, the main gym, bears their name.

The campus took its current architectural form in the 1820s when a local merchant, "Jockey" John Robinson, an uneducated Irish immigrant, donated funds to build a central building. For the dedication celebration in 1824, Robinson supplied a huge barrel of whisky, which he intended for the dignitaries in attendance. But according to a contemporary history, the rabble broke through the barriers and created pandemonium, which ended only when college officials demolished the whisky barrel with an ax.

The world's first recorded streaker — his name was George William Crump — was a student at Washington College, in 1804. He later became (perhaps inevitably) a Congressman as well as America's ambassador to Chile.

In 1977 The New Yorker published a cartoon showing a family in a car in front of the Washington and Lee campus. The caption was: "The College of Your Choice."

References

  1. ^ Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who. 1963.

Washington & Lee Mock Convention Blog


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