The Margaret Upton Conservatory of Music

Olivet College is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

liberal arts college located in

Olivet, Michigan Olivet is a city in Eaton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,605 at the 2010 census. Olivet College is located in the city. History From its founding in 1844 through the 1910 census,Higher Learning Commission The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) is an institutional accreditor in the United States. It has historically accredited post-secondary education institutions in the central United States: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Io ...

. It was founded in 1844 by missionaries from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of highe ...

, and it followed Oberlin in becoming the second

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

college or university in the United States. Olivet College is affiliated with the

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximatel ...

and the

National Association of Congregational Christian Churches The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of about 400 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak ...

and stands in the

Reformed tradition Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calv ...

Protestantism Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

History

In 1844, after founding

, Rev. John J. Shipherd and 39 missionaries, including Oberlin faculty, students, and alumni, came to Michigan to create a college, which Shipherd deemed "New Oberlin." The original land for the college was to be in present-day Ingham County, approximately from where the college stands. Olivetian lore says that while Shipherd was on a trip to the site in Ingham County, his horse continued to get lost, and would always wander back to a hill with an oak grove, which is where Olivet's Campus Square exists today. Shipherd decided that powers from above must be drawing the horse back to this site, and Shipherd deemed that this would become the site for "New Oberlin." He then chose to name it Olivet, however, after the biblical

Mount of Olives The Mount of Olives or Mount Olivet ( he, הַר הַזֵּיתִים, Har ha-Zeitim; ar, جبل الزيتون, Jabal az-Zaytūn; both lit. 'Mount of Olives'; in Arabic also , , 'the Mountain') is a mountain ridge east of and adjacent to Jeru ...

. The first courses began in December 1844. Because President Reuben Hatch's petition for a charter was denied, Olivet became the Olivet Institute, and remained a two-year school until chartered in 1859. The 20th century saw Olivet College become a liberal arts school, with a short-lived attempt at an

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

-style curriculum from 1934 to 1944. A marker designating the college as a Michigan Historic Site was erected in 1960 by the

Michigan Historical Commission Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. The inscription reads:

On February 24, 1844, the Reverend John J.“Father” Shipherd and thirty-nine followers arrived by ox-cart on this wilderness hilltop, driving their herds before them. They felt God had directed them to this oak grove for the purpose of founding a coeducational Christian college open to students of all races. First chartered as Olivet Institute, the school received its charter as a college in 1859. For over a century it has given a broad liberal arts education, with strong support from the Congregational church. Many alumni have gone forth “Pro Christo et Humanitate".

After assuming leadership in 2010, President Steven Corey announced the "Olivet College 2020 and Beyond Strategic Plan", which includes renovating existing buildings and facilities, creating a new student center, increasing endowment, and expand the student population to 1,500.

Academics

Olivet offers 32 programs that lead to a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...

and a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

of Business Administration in Insurance. Student-to-faculty ratio is 16:1. Olivet College has approximately 1,040 students, 40% female and 60% male. 74% of classes have less than 24 students, and there is a 16:1 student/faculty ratio. The college has a 59% retention rate for first to second year students. For the 2018–2019 school year, tuition is currently $26,748, room and board is $9,590, yearly fees are $912, and miscellaneous costs are $3,966. Approximately 99% of students receive some sort of financial aid.

Athletics

Along with

Albion College Albion College is a private liberal arts college in Albion, Michigan. The college was founded in 1835 and its undergraduate population was approximately 1,500 students in 2014. They participate in NCAA Division III and the Michigan Interco ...

and Michigan Agricultural College (now

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...

), Olivet founded the

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) is an athletic conference that competes in the NCAA's Division III. There are nine teams in the conference, all located in the states of Michigan and Indiana. The Michigan Intercollegia ...

(MIAA) in 1888. The MIAA is the nation's oldest collegiate conference. Olivet College athletic teams, nicknamed the ''Comets'', participate in the following intercollegiate sports as a member of the MIAA include: Men

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, cross country,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor), club volleyball, wrestling (Division III Independent), and

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

. Volleyball became a full varsity sport in 2015–16 (2016 season), competing in the

Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League The Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) is an intercollegiate men's volleyball conference associated with the NCAA's Division III. History The MCVL was founded in March 2014 by an amicable split of the Continental Volleyball Conference ( ...

. The men's boxing team won the

United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association The United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association (USIBA) is a nonprofit amateur collegiate boxing league founded in 2012 and formed, in part, to address perceived safety and fairness issues present in the National Collegiate Boxing Association ...

championship in 2016. Women basketball, bowling, boxing, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor), volleyball, and cheerleading.

Olivet College Radio

Olivet College has an FCC-Licensed Non-Commercial Educational student-run radio station, broadcasting in the Olivet area at 89.1 MHz FM with the callsign WOCR. The broadcast is also available for people outside the studio range online at. Students can volunteer for a radio shift from 7:30am to midnight Monday through Friday to broadcast music, campus events, news, and talk shows. Comet Football and Basketball is also often broadcast live from the game site. Charles Stewart Mott Academic Center

Notable alumni

* John Henry Barrows (1867), fifth President of

*Hamilton King (1878), United States Minister to Siam (Thailand) from 1898 to 1912 * Augusta Jane Chapin, 2010 inductee into

Michigan Women's Hall of Fame The Michigan Women's Hall of Fame (MWHOF) honors distinguished women, both historical and contemporary, who have been associated with the U.S. state of Michigan. The hall of fame was founded in 1983 by Gladys Beckwith and is sponsored by the Mic ...

Adeola Fayehun Adeola Eunice Oladele Fayehun (born 6 July 1984) is a Nigerian journalist who specializes in discussing current geopolitical, social and economic issues that affect the daily lives of Africans living on the continent. She is well known for a c ...

(2007), Nigerian journalist * Daron Cruickshank, current

mixed martial artist Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incorpo ...

competing in the UFC's Lightweight Division * Dave Cutler (1965), software engineer, designer and developer of operating systems including Windows NT at Microsoft and RSX-11M, VMS and VAXELN at Digital Equipment Corporation * James C. Harrison (did not graduate), artist *

James McCloughan James C. McCloughan (born April 30, 1946) is a former United States Army soldier and a Vietnam War veteran. For his actions during the war, McCloughan was approved for the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama and Secretary of the Army Eric Fan ...

(1968), Recipient of the Medal of Honor in 2017 *

Wolfgang Mieder Wolfgang Mieder (born 17 February 1944) is a retired professor of German and folklore at the University of Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, USA, where he had taught for 50 years. He is a graduate of Olivet College (BA), the University of Michigan ...

, educator * Joseph S. Murphy (1955), President of Queens College, President of Bennington College, and Chancellor of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

* George Pyne III (1965) football player *

John Ray John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...

(1950), football player and coach *

Sugar Chile Robinson Frank Isaac Robinson (born December 28, 1938), known in his early musical career as Sugar Chile Robinson, is an American jazz pianist and singer. A Detroit native, Robinson became famous as a child prodigy in the mid-1940s. Biography Robinson wa ...

, child musical prodigy * Vern Ruhle (1975), MLB pitcher and coach *

Claressa Shields Claressa Maria Shields (born March 17, 1995) is an American professional boxer and mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the undisputed female light middleweight title since March 20 ...

, Olympic boxing gold medalist * Scott Sigler, author of science-fiction and horror, podcaster *

John Swainson John Burley Swainson (July 31, 1925 – May 13, 1994) was a Canadian-American politician and jurist who served as the 42nd governor of Michigan from 1961 to 1963. Early life and education Swainson was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He mov ...

, 42nd

Governor of Michigan The governor of Michigan is the head of state, head of government, and chief executive of the U.S. state of Michigan. The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a member of the Democratic Party, who was inaugurated on January 1, 2019, as the s ...

* Ralph Thacker (1909), college football coach *

Robie Macauley Robie Mayhew Macauley (May 31, 1919 – November 20, 1995) was an American editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years. Biography Early life Robie Macauley was born on May 31, 1919, in Grand Rapids, Michigan ...

(did not graduate), editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years *

Justin Jaynes Justin Michael Jaynes (born August 10, 1989) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the Featherweight and Lightweight divisions. A professional since 2008, he most notably competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He i ...

, current

competing in UFC Featherweight division. Dole and Admissions

Notable faculty

Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...

, creative writing *

George Whitefield Chadwick George Whitefield Chadwick (November 13, 1854 – April 4, 1931) was an American composer. Along with John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what is called the Se ...

, composer * Hubert Lyman Clark, zoology * Amos Dresser, abolitionist and pacifist minister, one of the founders *

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals '' The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...

, creative writing *

Alfred Korzybski Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (, ; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of s ...

, semantics *

Golo Mann Golo Mann (born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann; 27 March 1909 – 7 April 1994) was a popular German historian and essayist. Having completed a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followe ...

, history *

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

, guest lecturer, creative writing

References

External links

Official website

Official athletics website
{{authority control Education in Eaton County, Michigan Universities and colleges affiliated with the United Church of Christ Educational institutions established in 1844 Buildings and structures in Eaton County, Michigan 1844 establishments in Michigan Private universities and colleges in Michigan