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April 4, 2008
College embarked on conscious effort to refine its look, create sense of place
Editor’s note: The following story is part of a package of stories and photos focusing on Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-supported racial-ethnic schools and colleges.
TUSCALOOSA, AL – There is purposefulness to the look and feel of Stillman College that is noticed the minute you enter the iron gates that embrace the 105-acre campus.
The grounds are impeccably clean, the lawns are neatly cut and the buildings all seem to match. That’s no accident, according to Stillman President Ernest McNealey.
Cordell Wynn Humanities and Fine Arts Center, named for Stillman College’s fourth president, was completed in 1999. Photo courtesy of Stillman College.
“We were very conscious about creating a sense of place and it started in very small ways – edging sidewalks, discouraging people from walking on the grass, no littering campaigns,” he said. “We systematically started to raise the sights, because obviously people know more about what they see than what you tell them.”
It’s a campaign that even seems to have infiltrated the minds of the students who attend the Presbyterian-founded college.
A recent visit to the campus found three female students striding abreast on their way toward a building. Two stayed to the sidewalk while one ventured off the path onto the grass.
 Stillman’s William H. Sheppard Library is named for the noted Presbyterian missionary and Stillman alum. The building was completed in 1956. Photo courtesy of Stillman College.The two called out to the one, asking what she thought she was doing. The lone offender, realizing her misstep, gasped and covered her mouth. The three laughed and the offender quickly stepped back onto the sidewalk.
Stillman outlines its rules clearly, and among the categories in its student handbook is one labeled littering, defined as “intentionally dropping, discarding, throwing, or otherwise disposing of refuse of any kind on college property, except in receptacles
provided for that purpose.”
The action of such an offense: “Restitution, campus or community service and suspension for repeat offenders.”
“Students have an interest in the physical efficiency of the buildings and grounds and share responsibility for the general appearance, upkeep and protection of the college property,” the student handbook also notes.
McNealey said once the school started its campaign for the sense of place, then “we went back and we retroed buildings that had flat tops, we put pitched roofs on them.
“Again, a very conscious plan to give a sense of wholeness to the campus,” he said.
The buildings on Stillman’s campus range in age, from Winsborough Hall dormitory first built in 1922 to the School of Education built in 2003.
Stillman held its first classes in 1876 after a group of Presbyterians headed by the Rev. Charles Allen Stillman presented an overture to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States calling for training school for black ministers, according to information on the school’s Web site.
The school moved to its present location in 1898. |
