History of Hiram College
Founded in 1850, Hiram College is a liberal arts college with a proud heritage of educational innovation and excellence.
Hiram College was established in the mid-nineteenth century as a preparatory institution of high grade called the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. The Institute was founded by the Disciples of Christ and located in Hiram, Ohio, because the founders believed this area of the Western Reserve to be "healthful and free of distractions." Since the College's first days, it has been nonsectarian and coeducational, and throughout its existence Hiram College has sustained this egalitarian tradition of educating men and women from diverse backgrounds. The institute's original charter was authorized by the state legislature on March 1, 1850, and modified in 1867 to recognize the institution's new collegiate rank when it became Hiram College.
During the "Eclectic" years, from 1850-1867, there were seven principals (the equivalent of today's college president); all but two of these individuals served very brief terms. Amos Sutton Hayden and James A. Garfield were the principals who did the most to establish and define the nature of the institution. Hayden was a Disciple minister who, along with his brother William and several others, took the initiative for the founding of a Disciple school on the Western Reserve. He then guided the school through the rough waters of its first six years.
Garfield was a student at the Institute from 1851-1853 and rose to prominence 
through his intellectual ability and personal charisma. He took two years away to complete his collegiate degree at Williams College, then returned in 1856 to become first a teacher, then principal of the Institute. Garfield was a classical scholar and taught Greek and Latin, along with such subjects as mathematics and geology. Recognizing the value of formal education, Garfield broadened the curriculum offered at the Institute and insisted on its nonsectarian character. Although he left Hiram in 1861 to take up the Civil War
command of Company A of the 42nd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment
recruited from Hiram, his name appeared in the Institute's catalogues until
1863. Throughout his life, he retained his fondness for Hiram, making frequent
visits and corresponding with numerous Hiram people. Two of his greatest
friends were Almeda Booth, teacher of English, classics and mathematics from
1851 to 1866, and Burke A. Hinsdale, a student of Garfield's and future president of the College.
Three years after the Institute attained collegiate rank and became known as Hiram College, Burke A. Hinsdale was appointed president. Because of the fairly brief terms of the two presidents who preceded him, Hinsdale is known as the first permanent president of Hiram College. During his administration (1870-1882), the College achieved higher academic standing and established an ideal model for intellectual honesty and sound scholarship that gained national recognition. Hinsdale gathered around him the nucleus of a strong faculty who continued to serve the College for the next half century.
Ely V. Zollars was the next president to make a distinct mark on the College.
Serving from 1888-1902, he substantially increased student enrollment,
established a productive endowment, and carried out a building program that
added a dormitory, an ion building, and a library/observatory to the
campus.
President Miner Lee Bates, a Hiram alumnus of the Class of 1895, served from
1907-1930. Much beloved by all Hiram constituencies, he worked hard to
reinforce the College's academic reputation, added several new buildings and a
wing to the library, and led two successful capital campaigns.
Bates was followed as president by Kenneth I. Brown, a 30-year-old Harvard graduate who, more than anyone else, established Hiram's reputation for innovative education. Under Brown (1930-40), the faculty tested and approved the Intensive Study Plan, whereby students took only one course in each of five 7-week terms. The innovative plan was highly successful and was reviewed in prestigious education journals, as well as in the Saturday Evening Post in an article titled "The Happiest College in the Land" (September 18, 1954).
Hiram's next president, Paul H. Fall (1940-1957) saw the College through the war
years and administered the Intensive Study Plan for 250 Army Air Force cadets in
training at Hiram, in addition to the college's traditional students. The College's
100th anniversary in 1950 was celebrated with the dedication of Centennial Hall,
a new dormitory for women. The decade of the 1950s saw two more Hiram
innovations, the inauguration of study abroad or extramural courses and
a summer speech course on a river showboat named the Majestic. Although showboat
summers no longer occur for Hiram students, the College still sends numerous
classes abroad each year, and the students are taught by the Hiram faculty who
accompany them.
Paul F. Sharp (1957-1964) and Elmer Jagow (1966-1985) presided over a 30-year
period of expansion which included a substantial increase in the student body
and in the amount of the College's endowment, as well as the addition of three
dormitories, art and music buildings, a student union, and a new main classroom
building. Jagow's administration also focused intensively on increasing
minority enrollment and a minority presence among faculty and staff. Curricular
innovations included the "Twentieth Century Course," the Freshman Colloquium
program, which is still a backbone of the curriculum, the Weekend College for
adult nontraditional students, and the regional studies initiative, whereby
faculty use Hiram's location on the Western Reserve as a laboratory in which to
focus their academic disciplines.
Under G. Benjamin Oliver (1989-2000), the campus expanded significantly with the
addition of the new library, the Esther and Carl Gerstacker Science Building,
and the Paul E. Martin Common. Yet another innovation was the conversion of the
academic calendar from two 15-week semesters, which is standard for most private colleges, to a split semester plan of a 12-week session and a 3-week session per semester. Through this academic calendar (known on campus as the "Hiram Plan"), students enroll in three
courses during each of the 12-week terms and take one intensive course in
each 3-week term. The 3-week intensives lend themselves particularly well to study
abroad programs.
The College's sesquicentennial celebration in 2000 provided an opportunity for the College to celebrate its rich past--a past that is defined by a commitment to the liberal arts and the formation of the whole person for which
Hiram College has always been known--while embracing a future
which promises new initiatives in educational innovation. In September 2004, the College marked another milestone along the path toward that future with the appointment of Thomas V. Chema as the 21st president of Hiram College.