Berry College

Infobox_University
name=Berry College


caption= Seal of Berry College
established=1902
motto="Not to be Ministered Unto, but to Minister"
type=Private, coeducational
president=Dr. Stephen R. Briggs
city=Mount Berry
state=Georgia
country=USA
enrollment=1737 Undergraduate, 121 Graduate
campus=Suburban 26,000+ acres (105+ km²)
endowment=$683 million
colors=Silver and Blue color box|#002868color box|#96938E| mascot=Viking
website= [http://www.berry.edu/ www.berry.edu]

Berry College is an American accredited, private, four-year liberal arts college located in Mount Berry, Georgia.

History

Berry was founded in 1902 by Martha McChesney Berry as a school for rural youth at a time when few public schools existed in Georgia. Seven years later, a girls' school was added, with a junior college being established in 1926 and a four-year college in 1930. Graduate programs outside the liberal arts were added in 1972. Financial contributions from Henry Ford and the Ford Foundation, along with donations from others have helped the institution establish itself as a leadingww liberal arts college in the southeastern United States.

Academics

Berry College offers students Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science, Master of Business Administration, Master of Education and Education Specialist degrees from the four schools making up the academic program. The liberal arts education includes a general education program coupled with the student's selected major. The four schools offer a total of 32 undergraduate academic majors, 34 minors, and three graduate majors. According to U.S. News and World Report Berry is currently ranked 118th among the "Top Liberal Arts colleges." [cite web|url=http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/directory/brief/drglance_1554_brief.php|title=U.S. News College Ranking|publisher=U.S. News and World Report| accessdate = 2007-08-10]

Campbell School of Business

The Campbell School of Business, directed by Dean John R. Grout, has its home at Green Hall on the Berry College campus. Green Hall offers students seven multimedia-equipped rooms. It offers five undergraduate majors and one graduate major. The Campbell School of Business recently received its accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) in April 2007. The school will also be featured in the “Best 290 Business Schools 2008 Edition” by the Princeton Review. [cite web|url=http://www.berry.edu/pr/news/pressdetail.asp?ID=482|title=Campbell School Recognized for Excellence by The Princeton Review|publisher=Berry College| accessdate = 2007-08-09]

The school offers undergraduate degrees in accounting, economics, finance, management, and marketing. It also fields an MBA program.

Charter School of Education and Human Sciences

The Charter School of Education and Human Sciences is located in the Cook Building. In 2003, the Cook Building underwent a major renovation as part of Berry's "Centennial Campaign". The School of Education was recently honored by the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education. [cite web|url=http://www.ailacte.org/modelsofexcellence.shtml|title=AILACTE Model of Excellence Award|publisher=Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education| accessdate = 2007-08-10]

This program offers bachelor's degrees in early childhood education, psychology, health and physical education, exercise science, and middle grades education. A master's degree in education is also offered.

Evans School of Humanities and Social Sciences

The Evans School makes its principal home in Evans Hall. Other buildings used by the Evans School include the Moon Building, home of the art program, the Laughlin Building, home of the communications department, Blackstone Hall, home of the theater program and Ford Music Hall, home of the music program. The Evans School is the largest school at Berry College, with the areas of study taught at the Evans School being the foundations for the general education requirement at Berry.

The Evans School offers 21 bachelor's degrees.

chool of Mathematical and Natural Sciences

The School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences makes its home in the Science Building. The Science Building opened in the spring semester of 2001 at a cost of $25 million. It includes four multimedia classrooms and practical laboratories for the sciences, mathematics and computer science labs, study rooms, and two greenhouses. The science facilities host conferences in the science and mathematics disciplines. The Berry College science program also has an animal science department, which makes its home in the Lamar Wescot Building at the Ford Complex. The animal science department uses the Rollins Ruminant Research Center and the Gunby Equestrian Center for hands-on learning. With 28,000 acres (110 km²), Berry College also offers one of the largest outdoor laboratories for field experience.

Majors in this school include animal science, engineering, biology, nursing, chemistry, computer science, environmental sciences, mathematics, and physics.

Religion

Berry was never officially affiliated with a particular Christian denomination, yet was founded as a Protestant institution with required chapel attendance and adherence to the Christian faith. Though mandatory religious adherence was abandoned decades ago, religious practice is prominent on campus. The campus has a chaplain, a non-denominational campus church, three chapels, and an active religion-in-life program spanning all Christian denominations. An interfaith council and an interfaith center was set up in 2004 to address the needs of non-Christian students, faculty and staff.

tudent Work

Each student is guaranteed a job on campus through the Berry student work program which is funded mostly with college endowment earnings and subsidized by the federal government work study program. Students participate in all aspects of campus work, from grounds crew and dining services to secretarial assistants to the president. The Bonner Foundation provides Berry students with community service scholarships, allowing students to work with dozens of community agencies rather than on campus. The college's agricultural programs, originally producing dairy, beef, pork, chicken, and horticultural items for consumption on campus and sale, were refocused in the 1990s on research rather than production.

Campus Life

Many student organizations exist, including national and international honor, service, and leadership societies. Although there are no traditional Greek social fraternities and sororities present on campus, chapters of both the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America and Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women were approved by the Student Government Association (SGA). They are both recognized not as fraternities, but as student honor societies. [cite web|url=http://www.berry.edu/stulife/activities/studentorganizations.asp|title=Berry College - Student Activities|publisher=Berry College| accessdate = 2007-10-24]

Over the past two decades, a strategic partnership between Berry and the WinShape Foundation has transformed the college's mountain campus into a service community, including a college scholarship program with two dormitories serving over a hundred students, three foster homes, boys & girls summer camps, a challenge/ropes course, and a retreat center and cabins for corporate and community groups and marriage seminars.

Athletics

The Berry College mascot is the Viking and the athletic teams are Division I members of the NAIA. Varsity sports are men's baseball, women's volleyball, and men's and women's basketball, soccer, golf, cross country, tennis, and indoor/outdoor track. The Berry College Equestrian Team became a varsity team in 2007 and is a member of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA). Non-varsity sports include the Viking Crew Club Team. A strong intramural sports program also exists. The $33 million Steven J. Cage Athletic and Recreational Center (The Cage Center) opened on January 25, 2008 housing the home games of the Vikings and Lady Vikings basketball teams and volleyball team. Previously Berry played its home basketball and volleyball games at Ford Gym, a facility that has housed Berry basketball for over 45 years. The facility was donated by Henry Ford. The Viking soccer teams play at Ford Field, while the baseball team plays home games at William R. Bowdoin field. The Vikings tennis team plays at Richards Memorial Tennis Courts and the cross country team runs in the Clara Bowl.

etting

The Berry campus, easily the largest land mass campus in the world ] . [cite web|url=http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/house/kids/location.htm|title=Location, Location, Location| accessdate = 2008-10-08] consists of fields, forests, and Lavender Mountain, designated portions of which are open to the public for hiking, cycling, horse back riding, and other outdoor activities. Present throughout the campus is a large population of deer, which are estimated to outnumber students eight to one. A portion of Berry's campus is designated as a wildlife refuge where no hunting is allowed. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources manages a large section (almost 16,000 acres) of the campus and conducts managed hunts in an attempt to control the deer population and provide recreational opportunities within department regulations. Fishing on some of the campus' lakes and streams is permitted with proper permits. Berry also has a wealth of wild turkeys, seasonal ducks and geese, skunks, and squirrels.

Mountain Day

Each year on the first weekend of October, Martha Berry is remembered in a traditional celebration called Mountain Day. The holiday, which celebrates Miss Berry’s birthday, begins with convocation for college students and a picnic lunch. The lunch is followed by the main event of the day, the Grand March. The music for the Grand March is provided by the college band. Students, led by the seniors, join hands, separate, and unite in ever widening lines as they weave a march pattern on the gentle slope at the foot of Lavender Mountain. During the march, students drop donations into the birthday basket, traditionally the number of cents equal to the student’s age. These donations become a part of the Martha Berry Memorial Endowment Fund, established by Miss Berry with gifts made to her to aid The Berry Schools. A colorful part of the tradition is the costume worn - for the women, a pastel pink (blue if a senior) blouse; for the men, a lighter blue shirt (white if a senior).

On the Saturday night of Mountain Day Weekend, students come together in the Clara Bowl to participate in Marthapalooza, an all-night carnival-like atmosphere with food, games, music, a bonfire, an outdoor movie, and the opportunity to camp out on campus with friends. [cite web|url=http://www.berry.edu/alumni/mountaindaytraditions.asp|title=Berry College - Mountain Day Traditions|publisher=Berry College| accessdate = 2007-10-03]

Films

Berry College has been used for the filming of several movies, along with music videos by bands such as Casting Crowns. The most notable films are "Remember the Titans" and "Sweet Home Alabama". Disney's movie "Perfect Harmony" was filmed at buildings including Old Mill. A short scene from "Dutch" was filmed on the Berry campus.

"Dead Poets Society" was slated to be filmed on the Berry campus, but creating fake snow on campus grounds was too expensive. A private boarding school in Delaware was chosen instead. [cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/trivia|title=Trivia for Deads Poets Society|publisher=imdb.com| accessdate = 2008-06-10]

References

External links

* [http://www.bonner.org Bonner Foundation web site]
* [http://winshape.org WinShape Foundation web site]
* [http://www.geocities.com/reunionfor1969 Unofficial Website of Berry Academy]
* [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-854 Berry College entry in New Georgia Encyclopedia]