Partnership

As I write, the sun slants through the winter-barren branches of the crab tree on the Joy House lawn. Beyond the branches, I see it strike the south face of Almira House, birthplace of Greenville College . The house is sheathed in black paper as it undergoes a complete transformation. I have spent the afternoon browsing Mary Tenney's book, “Still Abides the Memory,” the fascinating narrative of names and places, struggles and victories, ceremonies and pranks that have brought the academic and local communities of Greenville, Illinois together in a vibrant and lively partnership for 150 years.

In the fall of 1854 local businessman Stephen Morse invited his college roommate John White, then president of a college in the south, to come to Greenville to help him start a school for women. Morse's wife was an educated woman, rare in those days, and an outspoken advocate of giving that benefit to other women. With her vision went commitment. So when she pledged her entire $6,000 inheritance, higher education in Bond County began. I can almost hear the hammers, 150 years ago today, when the house I see across the street was under construction the first time.

Peer back in time through the windows of Almira House and those of the brick structure that soon became the new college home. We hear the bell at 6 a.m. as 100 girls are roused to stock the wood boxes, stoke the room fires, attend to their dressing, shake the straw mattresses, and parade down the main steps with slop-pails to the outside “facilities” before reporting for breakfast on the first floor. If we persisted through the day we might catch the “aerobic exercises” in the hallways where many of our faculty now have their offices. We might join the monthly Friday night gala receptions when students and townspeople were guests of the faculty, parading up and down the halls to music.

The partnership of local business and Almira College continued in 1864 with further financial support from Morse, and in 1875 from the Hoiles family. When Almira became Greenville College in 1892, it again required a partnership of Greenville 's leading businessman and an outside academic. This time it was W.S. Dann and a young Free Methodist from New York, Wilson T. Hogue.

Today Greenville College stands only because community partnership continues. Members of our community liaison group, “GC2GC” often comment on the remarkable contribution the college makes to our town. And for our part, the college benefits from the safe peaceful environment we have for study and a desirable place for faculty and staff to live. During his visit in 1858, Abraham Lincoln said of Bond County people that they were intellectual and peaceable…so much so that despite frequent need of his legal services in surrounding counties, he had never been called here! Our strong community connections continue today as we work with the city on a small business incubator project of mutual benefit. Those partnerships extend to Kaskaskia and Lewis and Clark community colleges where we offer our undergraduate degree completion program in business (GOAL), our MA in Education or Teaching, and new this year, a degree completion program in education (UTEP).

But had we listened carefully on Tuesday nights at those old windows and doors, along the hallways of Hogue, we would have understood the most important partnership that has made Greenville College rise and remain. That was the night when the community gathered in prayer. Our prayer times today are in Faculty/Staff chapel, in Thursday morning prayer time, before all committee meetings, and often before each class. But the heavenly partnership remains. As Mary Tenney reminds us, the men and women who pioneered Greenville College “deliberately chose the hard conditions…because they believed themselves bigger than nature and, therefore, able to master it and transform it. This faith in themselves arose from their faith in God. They knew that God was “bigger than anything that could happen to them” …and because nothing could shake this assurance, they had few of the fears that assail the modern and many satisfactions little known today.” We thank God for the partnerships, both human and divine that make Greenville College a transforming instrument today.