Presbyterian College was founded in 1880 by William Plumer Jacobs. He had served as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Clinton since 1864 and founded the Thornwell Orphanage. Originally called Clinton College, its first class (including three women) graduated in 1883. In establishing PC, his "tree of knowledge," Jacobs' goal was to educate young people for lives of service to church and society, and thereby be, in his words, "epistles to Christ's honor and glory."[5]
By the time of Jacobs' death in 1917, the college had grown considerably in size and resources, and had six major buildings. Neville Hall, PC's most recognized structure, was constructed in 1907. The tenure of president Davison McDowell Douglas (1911–1926) saw the tripling of the size of the faculty and student body, the construction of four new buildings, and growth in the college's assets from $150,000 to over $1 million.[6] After weathering the storms of the Great Depression and Second World War, Presbyterian has continued expansion on many fronts through the second half of the twentieth century. It became fully coeducational in 1965 (and in so doing dropped its previous motto, "Where Men are Made"). In 1969, it began admitting African-American students.[7]
Academics
Undergraduate
Presbyterian College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).[8] The School of the Liberal Arts confers B.A. and B.S. degrees in 30 courses of study and 9 pre-professional programs including Pre-Law, Pre-Med, Pre-Theology, and Pre-Pharmacy. PC also offers a dual-degree program in Engineering (with Clemson University, Auburn University, Georgia Tech, the University of South Carolina, and Vanderbilt University) and minor fields in an additional 13 disciplines such as Africana Studies, Media Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies.[9][10] The liberal arts program has small average class sizes (13-15 students). Beginning in 1991, six Presbyterian College faculty members have been declared Carnegie/CASE South Carolina Professor of the Year Award winners.[8]
Students at Neville Hall
PC houses a Center for South Korean and East Asian Studies, which is partnered with Hannam University.[11] Hannam and PC have been affiliated with each other since Hannam's inception, when it was founded by 1949 PC alumnus John Somerville.
Graduate
The School of Pharmacy confers Doctor of Pharmacy degrees (PharmD) and is oriented toward serving the healthcare needs of underdeveloped and economically depressed areas of South Carolina and the greater US. A 54,000 square-foot facility, its doors opened in the fall of 2010 with an inaugural class of 80 students. The School of Pharmacy was fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) in July 2014.[12] Despite its youth, it has accrued multiple awards including a Biomedical/Biobehavioral Research Administration Development (BRAD) grant from the National Institutes of Health, and a Generation Rx Champion Award from the South Carolina Pharmacy Association (SCPhA) for its efforts at raising awareness of prescription drug abuse.[13][14]
Student life
Size and makeup
The 2014 edition of U.S. News & World Report regards Presbyterian College as a "selective" institution that accepted 57.8% of applicants in the fall of 2012. Of PC's 1,172 undergraduates, 44% are male and 56% are female, and 97% live on campus.[15]
Since 1915 all aspects of life at Presbyterian have been regulated by a student-run honor code.[18] The signing of the honor code is a central fixture of each academic year's opening convocation ceremony and is a requirement for all incoming students, faculty, and coaches. The honor code binds one to "abstain from all deceit," to "neither give nor receive unacknowledged aid in [one's] academic work," to "respect the persons and property of the community" and to "not condone discourteous or dishonest treatment of these by [one's] peers."[19] Suspected violations of the honor code go before the college's honor council, composed of students and faculty, which has the power to sanction, suspend, or dismiss those found guilty.[20]
Campus
Neville Hall
PC's 240-acre campus covers areas in and around Clinton, providing academic buildings, dining facilities, recreational areas, and athletics venues. The college's 15 townhouses, 11 residence halls, and 9 apartments house nearly all of the undergraduate student body. Six buildings on Presbyterian College's campus (Doyle Hall, Laurens Hall, Jacobs Hall, the President's House, Neville Hall, and the campus bell tower) are part of the Thornwell-Presbyterian College Historic District, a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, Doyle Hall was demolished in July 2014 as part of the renovations for Georgia Hall.
Athletics
The official logo of Presbyterian College Athletics
Athletics is very important to PC's life and culture. Around 1/3 of the student body competes as student-athletes[21] and many PC alumni are or were professional coaches at the college level, including current women's soccer coach Brian Purcell ('87), former head football coach Harold Nichols ('89), former Vanderbilt basketball head coach Roy Skinner ('52), and Bob Waters ('60), a record-setting head football coach at Western Carolina.
Presbyterian is a member of the Big South Conference of NCAA Division I[22] and fields seventeen varsity teams in eleven sports: football (FCS), men's and women's cross country, volleyball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, softball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's tennis, women's lacrosse, baseball, and men's and women's wrestling. Football has competed within the FCS conference Pioneer Football League since 2021.[23] The college's colors are royal blue and garnet and its teams are known as the Blue Hose. Although PC's mascot Scottie the Scotsman is a medieval Scottish warrior, the Blue Hose name originally referred to the socks worn by the football team in the early 20th century.[24][25] PC's traditional rivals include Wofford College, Furman University, The Citadel, and Newberry College.
Since 1953, the Atlantic Coast Conference has awarded the Jacobs Blocking Trophy in honor of the memory of PC's founder, William P. Jacobs, to the conference's most outstanding blocker, as voted by a poll of the conference's head coaches and defensive coordinators. The 2022 recipient is Clemson University graduate student-athlete Jordan McFadden.[26]
Until 2007, PC's fierce rivalry with Newberry College was expressed in the annual Bronze Derby football game, named for the series's trophy, which made its debut in 1947 after a basketball game between the two colleges. After the game, which PC won 51–47, a scuffle broke out between supporters of both colleges and a derby hat was snatched from the head of a PC student. The hat was eventually returned, cast in bronze, and transformed into a symbol of the rivalry. The last installment of the Bronze Derby game was played in November 2006 at Bailey Memorial Stadium in Clinton, where PC defeated Newberry 10–0. The Blue Hose lead the all-time Bronze Derby series, but since Presbyterian's transition to Division I in 2007 the annual clash has been postponed indefinitely.
John Bright; Cyrus H. McCormick Chair of Hebrew and Old Testament Interpretation, Union Theological Seminary; American biblical scholar; author A History of Israel; listed notable alumni Union Presbyterian Seminary
Glen Browder; member of the Alabama House of Representatives (1982–1986), Secretary of State, State of Alabama (1987–1989), member of the US House of Representatives (1989–1997), professor emeritus of political science, Jacksonville State University[27]
Joan Gray; Moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)[28]
Kimberly Nicole Hampton (1976–2004); Captain in the United States Army and the first female US military pilot to be shot down and killed by hostile fire
Douglas Kiker (1930–1991); journalist and author, NBC News national-affairs correspondent; anchor, NBC Nightly News; NBC News Rome bureau chief (Europe and Western Asia); White House correspondent, the New York Herald Tribune; Peabody Award, Columbia University's prize for broadcast journalism
Charles B. MacDonald; former US Army Captain, US Army Deputy Chief Historian, and author of renowned WWII memoir Company Commander
John McKissick; head football coach at Summerville High School (SC), the record holder for most career wins in high school football
Allen Morris; tennis player, 1956 U.S. Davis Cup team member, quarter-finalist at Wimbledon; former head tennis coach, UNC Chapel Hill (1980–1993); inductee, North Carolina and South Carolina Tennis Halls of Fame
