[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1269-S1270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CENTRE COLLEGE BICENTENNIAL

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Kentucky's rich history brings many 
causes of reflection and celebration. For 200 years, Centre College has 
been a premier setting for liberal arts education in Kentucky, earning 
nationwide acclaim and respect. So today I would like to commemorate 
the bicentennial of one of the Commonwealth's most treasured 
institutions.
  In 1819, the Kentucky Legislature formally established the school in 
Danville, giving it a name inspired by its central geographic location. 
Overseeing the school was a board of trustees filled with notable 
Kentuckians, including our first Governor, Isaac Shelby, as its 
chairman and Ephraim McDowell, the famed frontier surgeon who performed 
the first successful ovariotomy. Construction began shortly after on 
the school's first building, which was completed the next year and 
stands to this day with the name ``Old Centre.'' Classes began that 
fall with two professors and five pupils. With a commitment to 
classical liberal arts education, the curriculum focused on topics such 
as Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and logic.
  Encountering financial difficulties in subsequent years, Kentucky 
ceded administration of Centre to a Presbyterian denomination but the 
legislature ensured that the school would remain accessible to students 
and faculty of all faiths. In 1830, a new president took the reins of 
the school. Twenty-seven-year-old John C. Young, a minister, teacher, 
and administrator, expanded the college and helped advance it toward 
distinction. At the end of his 27 years of leadership, the school 
boasted a 200-plus student body, secured an endowment of more than 
$100,000, and employed a renowned faculty.
  Through the following decades, the school continued to grow in 
excellence and impact. Although the Civil War caused a temporary drop 
in the number of graduates--and the successive occupations of Old 
Centre by Confederate and Union forces--Centre's commitment to its 
liberal arts mission never wavered. The school had gained such great 
national distinction that the president of Princeton University, also 
the future President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, is said to 
have remarked in 1903 that, ``There is a little college down in 
Kentucky which, in her sixty years, has graduated more men who have 
acquired prominence and fame than has Princeton in her 150 years.''
  Centre's reputation for excellence has reached beyond the classroom. 
In what the New York Times would later call ``Football's Upset of the 
Century,'' the Praying Colonels scored an unlikely victory over the 
top-ranked Harvard University football team in 1921. Not long after, 
Centre officially became coeducational in 1926. The following decades 
saw the integration of the school, the expansion of the campus to 
include new buildings, and the establishment of a chapter of the 
prestigious Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
  One of the greatest measures of a college are the alumni it has 
produced. Centre graduates can be found in a wide range of 
distinguished fields, including the highest levels of the U.S. 
Government. Vice Presidents John C. Breckinridge and Adlai Stevenson 
both held diplomas from the school, as did Supreme Court Chief Justice 
Fred Vinson and Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan. More than a 
dozen U.S. Senators, scores of Congressmen, and 11 Governors have also 
graduated from the school, as have leaders in business, medicine, law, 
and journalism. Perhaps it was the school's history of producing Vice 
Presidents and other prominent figures that led to its hosting of not 
one, but two Vice Presidential debates, in 2000 and 2012.
  For such an impressive milestone, Centre has planned a year of 
celebratory events to mark its history and to herald its potential for 
the future. With President John Roush, the faculty, staff, students, 
and one of the most engaged alumni bases in the country, I am proud to 
mark Centre College's bicentennial. They all deserve the Senate's 
congratulations and best wishes for the future of liberal arts 
education in Kentucky.

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