On the frontiers of american education
A Conversation with Dr. John F. Piper Jr.
There's not a person on earth who knows more about Lycoming College than Dr. John F. Piper Jr. For the last few years, from his small, windowless, book-filled office on the lower level of the Academic Center, he has meticulously researched the College's 200-year existence. He's discovered the good, the bad and the whimsical. And, in recognition of Lycoming's ongoing bicentennial celebration, he's put it all into his latest book, "Lycoming College 1812-2012: On the Frontiers of American Education."
Piper's thirst for knowledge about the College grew more and more as his tenure on campus evolved. His more than 40-year association was initiated in 1969, when he became a professor of history. He later chaired the department on several occasions from 1974-92 and served as dean of the College from 1992 until his retirement in 2007. Since then, in his role as College historian, he's rifled through old student newspapers, alumni magazines, board minutes and countless other documents, in print and on the web, in an effort to discover all that is Lycoming College.
Lycoming Magazine recently caught up with the storyteller-extraordinaire to learn more about his laudable efforts with the book that will forever capture the first 200 years of the College.
What was your biggest challenge while researching the College's 200-year history?
The historian asks the question, "How did we get the way we are?" The biggest general challenge in writing a history of Lycoming College was to find the answer (s) to that question. Charles S. Williams wrote a "History of Lycoming College and its Predecessor Institutions" in 1959. He chose to answer the question in terms of the leaders of the College, particularly its presidents. While they were very important to the College's history, my research indicates that they had substantial help from the trustees/directors, the faculty and the students. The participation of the members of all these groups in seeking to work out the mission of the College led me to a more complex answer to the basic question.
Lycoming has descended from three other institutions, one of which had two names. The Williamsport Academy began in 1812, the inspiration of eight men who sought a state charter for it and became its first trustees. A group of Methodists, led by the Rev. Benjamin Crever, bought the Academy from the Town Council in 1848 and named it Dickinson Seminary. The trustees, who became the directors in 1860, renamed it Williamsport Dickinson Seminary, although most people continued to call it Dickinson Seminary. The Seminary added a Junior College in 1929. The president and board of directors moved their school to four-year status in 1947 and chose the name Lycoming.
The sources for these specific institutions presented different challenges. The problem I faced with the Academy was that very few records have survived from the early half of the 19th century. There are few official documents, very few letters and no diaries, and no consistent run of local newspapers. I discovered some new information in the archival collections of the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg and in the Lycoming County Historical Society Archives, but there remain substantial gaps in the story. The challenge for the other three institutions was just the opposite of the one for the Academy: there are many sources for each of them, requiring extensive study and interpretation.
What's the most interesting fact you discovered?
I prefer to respond about the most interesting things that I discovered, and they are not facts the way people think of facts, such as dates or dollar amounts or enrollments. First, the school would not have survived without the support of interested individuals, none of whom were faculty or presidents: they were the people who stepped forward to get a charter, and to fund the schools through the years, and who sent their children to it and encouraged others to send their children. Some were directors or trustees, but many had no official relationship with the school except through a financial contribution. They include a member of the Rich family who bought a $500 bond in the early 1850s, and board member Miriam Wendle, who left a small Williamsport company, Lubrikup, to the College in the 1960s.
Another important group was the students. My first outline for the book projected 12 chapters and did not contain a separate one on students. The final book has 21 chapters, with two devoted to students, and several others in which they play a large role. My decision to include them in a substantial way led to a much longer book, and I believe a much more compelling and accurate story.
How valuable was the College Archives in your research?
I arrived at Lycoming in 1969. A few years later, the History Department created a course called Historical Methods. I believed that the history of the College was a potential source for the required research papers and went in search of the archives. They amounted to a dusty collection of materials, unorganized and very difficult to use. In spite of that, some students used them and were able to tell parts of the story of the school. Things changed in the 1980s as the library began to gather the archival material. I attribute the great leap forward to Janet Hurlbert [director of library services], who developed a proposal for an archives policy in the mid-1990s, which the board of trustees adopted. The library subsequently hired Julia Dougherty, the former director of circulation, to be the archives technician. The archives were absolutely essential to the preparation of the history. I do not think I could have written it, documenting the sources, before 2000.
Has there been a common thread associated with Lycoming's longevity?
There have been at least three common threads that have contributed to its longevity. They are, first, the consistent mission of the school to provide the best liberal (as in liberal arts and sciences) education possible to the students, given the financial conditions at any given time. Beginning in 1848 and through at least 1968, this mission had a very explicit Christian orientation. All the presidents from 1848 to 1968 were Methodist clergymen. The College continues to be related to the United Methodist Church and accredited by the University Senate of the United Methodist Church, but the religious orientation has become somewhat less strident in the last four decades. The second thread has been the generations of volunteers who have given their time, talents and money to the school. The most important among this group has been, as I suggested earlier, the directors/trustees. The third common thread has been the commitment of the faculty. Those who arrived as teachers, from Academy days until the 1920s, rarely stayed long, but they sustained a liberal arts curriculum.
Beginning in the 1920s, President John Long gathered a core faculty who remained longer and sustained a more consistent curriculum. The liberal arts and sciences curriculum in use today dates from the early 1960s and was modified and strengthened in the 1990s.
What do you hope readers will take away from your new book?
As I describe in the book, Lycoming College has been on four of the significant frontiers of American education, and beginning with the new Carnegie Classification of Colleges in 2000, has moved to a fifth one. These different experiences do not make the College unique, but they do give it a distinction and a very rich history. My hope is that the College community will find the story exciting and share it more widely. I have two other audiences in mind. The history of the College is also the history of one important aspect of private education in Williamsport and the surrounding region, and I hope the citizens of the area learn its story. My final goal was to write a history that would add Lycoming's story to those of other educational institutions in the nation.
Editor's Note: Dr. John F. Piper Jr. received Lycoming's Dale V. Bower Service Award in 2009. His educational background includes earning a bachelor's degree in history from Lafayette College, a bachelor of divinity degree from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Duke University. He and his wife, Margaret, reside in Loyalsock Township just outside of Williamsport, Pa.