Setting a New Tone
Orley R. Herron became the seventh president of Greenville College in 1970 and served until mid-summer 1977. Coming to campus at the end of a period of interim leadership, and with relatively little knowledge of the college or the church, Herron faced the immense task of becoming known and setting a new tone on campus. Being the first and only president from outside the Free Methodist Church (originally a Baptist, he later joined the Free Methodist Church), and the first with experience at a major public university (he was chief assistant to the president of Indiana State University), Herron was received enthusiastically by the college and the community. A handful of the church's leadership, however, remained distant and sometimes suspicious.

A person with charisma, President Herron first set himself to the task of infusing the college with a new spirit, and the local community with a new attitude toward the college. Begin an ordained minister, as well as an educator, Herron spoke and wrote often of the power of Christ to give faculty and students a positive, optimistic, "can do" attitude toward life. At this particular juncture in Greenville's history, a new spirit of hope and optimism was clearly needed.

In the governance of the college, Herron's era saw the implementation of the professional faculty council model, and the reorganization of the trustees into a working committee structure. With the baby boomers increasing the college's enrollment to a peak of 895, new faculty with doctorates were added. As existing faculty also completed doctorates, there was an increase in the proportion of doctorates from around 20 percent to more than 40 percent of the total faculty. Also, new trustees, with an increasing number coming from business and executive roles, were added with the expectation if increased financial support.

"A Principled Campus"
In addition to a new spirit, a revised governance structure, and improved faculty training, Herron was faced with a student generation whose parents and pastors had not taught as normative a life-style as had characterized earlier generations. Regulations on dress codes, curfew hours, entertainment, and other such matters were being questioned nationally, in the churches, and thus at Greenville.

Herron's response was to develop what he called a "principled campus," with less emphasis on rule-governed behavior. This he spoke about in chapel and before the students and faculty. Biblical principles, he said, should be internalized, and a developmental approach followed in helping students grow into that maturity to which Christ calls them. Even so, there was on occasion or two when a few students would protest the college for its alleged legalisms by carrying picket signs when the trustees came to campus for board meetings.

It was during President Herron's tenure that an answer to the long-standing need for a new science building was finally begun. Burritt had first cited the need in 1910, and under Marston existing labs had been improved. During Richardson's time bids for a new building, to be located where the tennis courts are today, came in considerably over projections, so plans to build were canceled. The seventy-fifth anniversary campaign funds, raised toward the cost of the new building, were used to pay the architect approximately $70,000 and the balance of around $200,000 placed in reserve. President Herron was able to use these funds, combined with a $300,000 bond issue, to lay plans for constructing the brick shell of the present Snyder Hall of Science.

Herron left for the presidency of another college in the summer of 1977. The completion of the science building, as well as the raising of the balance of funds (total cost: nearly 1.4 million) was assumed by Herron's successor, W. Richard Stephens. Dr. Stephens, the eighth president of Greenville College, completed sixteen years in office. A review of his years will follow in a later chapter.