Monmouth College: A Liberal Arts Education in the Heart of Illinois
Monmouth College, a private Presbyterian liberal arts college located in Monmouth, Illinois, offers a distinctive educational experience rooted in tradition and committed to innovation. Founded in 1853, the college has a rich history, a strong academic reputation, and a vibrant campus community. This article explores the various facets of Monmouth College, from its historical origins and academic programs to its campus life and notable alumni.
Historical Overview
Monmouth College's story began on April 18, 1853, when it was established by the Second Presbytery of Illinois of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Initially named Monmouth Academy, the institution gained collegiate status and was officially chartered by the state legislature on September 3, 1856, becoming Monmouth College.
The college faced immediate challenges, particularly during the American Civil War. With the campus still under construction, a significant portion of the male student body enlisted in the military. In total, 232 students, faculty members, and trustees served in the Civil War. Among them, a quarter were wounded, and one in eight lost their lives. Abner C. Harding was one of two individuals associated with Monmouth College who were awarded the Medal of Honor for their service.
Monmouth distinguished itself early on as a coeducational institution, granting women and men equal access to its academic offerings. This commitment to inclusivity was a progressive stance for the time.
World War II presented a similar crisis to the college, as students enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Monmouth responded by hosting the Naval Flight Preparatory School and a V-5 Navy Academic Refresher Unit program for officers. The Navy later adopted portions of Monmouth's curriculum for training programs nationwide. More than 2,000 Navy men attended Monmouth College, with many re-enrolling after the war, supported by the G.I. Bill.
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In the 1950s, Monmouth's chemistry department gained national recognition under the leadership of Professor William S. Haldeman, who received a major award from the American Chemical Society. The Steelman Report on Manpower for Research highlighted Monmouth alongside four other small colleges-Hope, Juniata, St. Olaf, and Swarthmore-as institutions that sent a high percentage of their graduates on to earn doctorates in the sciences.
The 1960s brought a period of secularization, driven by dwindling financial support from the United Presbyterian Church. The college removed the Church Synod's role in nominating and confirming trustees, enabling the recruitment of trustees with stronger business and financial expertise.
Affiliations and Memberships
Monmouth College is a founding member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) and a member of the Annapolis Group of independent liberal arts colleges. The college maintains its affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is a member of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities.
Academics and Curriculum
Monmouth College provides a comprehensive liberal arts education with a focus on interdisciplinary connections. Chemistry at Monmouth is an approved baccalaureate program by the American Chemical Society. The college offers 40 major fields of study and 17 pre-professional fields of study (with 851 different courses offered) in the sciences, arts, humanities, mathematics, computer sciences, social sciences, foreign languages, classics, and interdisciplinary fields including premedical and pre-engineering studies, and provides an integrated core curriculum. This curriculum includes four signature courses designed to aid students in making connections across disciplines and understanding their education as an integrated whole. Sixteen percent of Monmouth students in the class of 2013 were double majors. A small number of triple majors and interdisciplinary majors also exist.
The most popular majors at Monmouth are Business Administration, Physical Education, Psychology, and Economics. Admissions to Monmouth are classified as "selective". For the Class of 2017 (enrolled fall 2013), Monmouth received 2972 applications and accepted 1914 (64.4%).
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Off-Campus Study and Internships
Monmouth College emphasizes experiential learning through off-campus study programs and internships. As a founding member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) consortium, Monmouth offers over seventy off-campus programs in over fifty countries. These programs, typically lasting one semester, provide opportunities for cultural, scientific, economic, and historical study and research. These programs include scientific research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government interning in Washington, D.C., and cultural activities in Florence, Italy. Monmouth College faculty frequently teach in these programs along with other members of the consortium including Carleton College, Grinnell College, and eleven other colleges.
The Wackerle Career and Leadership Center arranges hundreds of internships annually for students, including public service work around the United States. Summer research opportunities are available for students, including incoming freshmen and transfers, in the sciences and other areas of study.
Campus and Resources
The 112-acre campus features a variety of resources, including academic buildings, athletic facilities, and three wildlife sanctuaries for ecological study. Notable resources include the Shields Collection of antiquities, the largest privately held collection of Native American artifacts in the region, the only direct copy of the Canopus Stone outside of the Cairo Museum, an astronomical observatory, the Mellinger writing center, the Wackerle Career and Leadership center, and sporting facilities.
The Kasch Performance Hall provides a traditional setting for musical performances and includes a refurbished three-manual pipe organ. The Wells Theater has been upgraded with high tech lighting and sound equipment. There are ten residence halls, an intercultural house, seven Greek houses, and a garden theme housing which grows its own organic food and harvests its own honey using college facilities including seven acres set aside for such use.
Recent campus expansions (between 2000 and 2007) have added three new residence halls, an apartment complex, an athletic complex, tennis complex, baseball, and soccer fields. The renovated Dahl Chapel and Auditorium, containing a 600-seat English Chapel style recital hall/auditorium and music rehearsal space, reopened in 2003. The largest building on campus is the 154,000-square-foot Huff Athletic Center. Opened in 2013 is the $42 million, 138,000-square-foot Center for Science and Business, which houses the departments of accounting, biology, chemistry, economics, mathematics & computer science, physics, psychology and political economy & commerce. The college maintains a digital television studio and media (computer) lab, a web-based radio station, digital classrooms, and three art galleries.
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The Ivory Quinby House, built by a founder of Monmouth College, is now the home of the President of the college and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Hewes Library, with over a half-million items catalogued, houses collections of antiquities, rare books, art, and archaeology, and provides computer laboratories and tech support.
Monmouth College has implemented several initiatives to reduce energy consumption and increase recycling. These include the installation of new heating boilers, the use of energy-efficient lighting, low-flow water systems, and the replacement of windows in older buildings. The Center for Science and Business includes energy efficient heating/cooling systems and heat recapture exhaust systems among other features.
Student Life
Full-time students make up 100% of the population of about 725 undergraduate students. Students represent about 28 states and about nine countries. The college is located in a residential neighborhood of Victorian homes, removing it from the safety concerns of many urban campuses.
Monmouth College is a member of the Midwest Conference and the NCAA Division III. The college offers eleven varsity sports for men and eleven for women. The college has won the Midwest Conference men's all-sports trophy each of the last two years. The Monmouth College men's track and field team placed third in the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 26, 2007. It was the first national team trophy that a Monmouth College sports team has won. The following year, the men's track and field team took second place in the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships. In 2014, the college's sports teams and student-athletes won awards for academic achievement including national academic honors from seven different organizations. Volleyball and Men's Golf earned team academic accolades from their respective national coaches' organizations for their high team GPA. Eleven team members also earned individual national honors for their academic excellence including one student who became Monmouth's first winner of the NCAA's Elite 89 Award, given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA participating in one of the NCAA's 89 sponsored championships.
Monmouth began its college football rivalry with Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois in 1888, making it the sixth-oldest college football rivalry in the country. The two schools play annually for the Bronze Turkey trophy in November (originally on Thanksgiving). The Monmouth College football team has appeared in the NCAA Division III Playoffs in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2025. Monmouth's recent varsity football alumni include two former quarterbacks who went on to the National Football League.
Monmouth College fields over twenty club athletic teams for men and women spanning about a dozen indoor and outdoor sports. These include sand volleyball, ultimate frisbee, badminton, floor hockey, wrestling and table tennis in addition to the more traditional flag football, basketball, and softball.
The Dahl Chapel and Auditorium is the oldest academic building on the Monmouth College campus. In the Monmouth College music department, majors and non-majors perform in ensembles including chorales, male and female a capella, marching band, concert bands, and an orchestra. The college also has a gospel choir and provides opportunities for musical theatre. The chorale has toured nationally, visiting nearly half the states in the US, and internationally, including trips to Scotland. The Kasch Performance Hall, a 600-seat concert hall and stage which is inside the Dahl Chapel, received a $3 million restoration in 2003.
Notable Alumni
Monmouth College has produced a diverse array of successful alumni in various fields, including:
- James L. Pate 1963: chairman, chief executive, Pennzoil-Quaker State Co.; Assist. Secr. President Gerald Ford; chairman, Devon Energy Corp.; chief economist, B.F. Goodrich Co.
- Harold "Red" Poling 1949: chairman, CEO, Ford Motor Company
- Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale 1947: Medal of Honor Recipient, Vietnam War; presidential candidate; U. S. Naval War College.
- Theodore P. Charles C. Thomas H. McMichael 1886: M.A. 1889, President, Monmouth College (1903-1936); moderator, Presbyterian Church of N. America
- Maurice H. Rees 1904: medical educator, Dean, U. of Colorado Medical School; Captain, U. S. Navy; U. S. Naval Reserve.
- Charles F. Dan Everett Waid 1887: chief architect, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.
- Fletcher S. Dean E. Roger J. Chad Simpson 1998: Micro Award, short and flash fiction author; Teresa A. John F. Lyman B. Reid K. Beveridge 1964, Brig. Gen. James K. L. Stephan T. Philip G. George H. Robert H. Samuel M. William J. Francis Louis "Jug" Earp 1921, N. F. L. player, Green Bay Packers; inductee, Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame; player, N. Y.
- Alex Tanney 2011: N. F. L.
- Mary G. Rachel J. John M. Kennedy J. Reed 1967: theoretical physicist, Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab.; founder, Nat. Physical Science Consortium (NPSC); Presidential Award, Excellence in Science, Math. and Engineering Mentoring; Fellow, American Physical Society; Fellow, American Assn.
- Alfred L. Clarence F. Herschel L. Charles A. Sprague: Governor of Oregon in 1940James R. Robert S. James Montgomery Rice 1864, American army colonel; lawyer; member, Illinois House of Representatives; contributed to the founding of the U. S.
- James H. Richard Elihu Sloan 1877: Governor, Arizona Territory; Assoc. Justice, Arizona Territorial Supreme Court; judge, U. S.
- Charles A. Earl W. Jonathan C. Wright 1987: judge, Ill. Circuit Court; member, Ill.
Location and Accessibility
The Monmouth College Office of Admission is on the corner of Sixth Street and East Broadway. Parking is available in the parking lot on the east side of the building or on East Broadway. The easiest way to get directions to campus by car is to use Google Maps. Amtrak has three lines that stop in Galesburg, about 20 minutes east of Monmouth. Prospective students: If you choose to travel by rail, our Admission Office will arrange a ride for you from the train station to campus and back again.
Monmouth is one hour from both the Peoria International Airport and the Quad Cities International Airport in Moline, Illinois. Southeast Iowa Regional Airport - located 30 minutes away in Burlington, Iowa - offers direct service from St. Louis (Lambert-St. International gateway airports with connecting flights to Peoria or Moline include O’Hare (Chicago), Hartsfield-Jackson (Atlanta), Detroit Metro, Dallas/Fort-Worth, Denver and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. The Peoria Charter Bus Service has routes from O’Hare International Airport (Chicago) to Peoria. Taxi or ride-share services are available in Galesburg.
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