Wiley College
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| Wiley College | |
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| Motto: | Achieving Excellence Through Pride and Performance |
| Established: | 1873 |
| Type: | Private College |
| President: | Haywood Strickland |
| Location: | Marshall, Texas, United States |
| Campus: | Urban, |
| Colors: | Purple and White |
| Website: | www.wileyc.edu |
Wiley College is a four-year, private, historically black, liberal arts college located on the west side of Marshall, Texas. Founded in 1873 by the Methodist Episcopal Church's Bishop Isaac Wiley and certified in 1882 by the Freedman's Aid Society, it holds distinction as one of the oldest predominantly black colleges west of the Mississippi River.
The original college library was a Carnegie Library. In 1907 Wiley received the first Carnegie college library west of the Mississippi. The building is now the current home of the business office.
In 2005-2006, on-campus enrollment approached 450, while an off-campus program in Shreveport, Louisiana, for students with some prior college credit who seek to finish a degree, was about 250. In the Fall of 2005, total enrollment approached approximately 700. As of Fall 2006, total enrollment was about 750. Wiley is an open admissions college and about 96 percent of students receive some amount of financial aid.
The Wiley College debate team was the basis for the 2007 movie The Great Debaters directed by and starring Denzel Washington. In 1935, the Wiley College debate team defeated the reigning national debate champions, the University of Southern California and not Harvard as depicted in the movie. On December 19, 2007, Denzel Washington announced a donation of one million US dollars to Wiley so the team could be re-established.
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[edit] U.S. Civil Rights movement
Wiley, along with Bishop College, was instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement in Texas.
Wiley and Bishop students launched the first sit-ins in Texas in the rotunda of the Old Harrison County Courthouse. James L. Farmer, Jr., son of James L. Farmer, Sr., graduated from Wiley and became one of the "Big Three" of the Civil Rights Movement; organizing the first sit-ins and Freedom Rides in the United States.
[edit] Notable faculty
Melvin B. Tolson, a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance, was an English professor at the college. James L. Farmer, Sr., the first black Texan to earn a PhD, was also a professor at Wiley.
[edit] Notable alumni
| Name | Class year | Notability | Reference |
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| James L. Farmer, Jr. | 1938 | U.S. civil rights leader | [1] |
| Conrad O. Johnson | Music educator | [2] | |
| Henry Cecil McBay | Chemist and college professor | ||
| Heman Marion Sweatt | Plaintiff in U.S. Supreme Court case, Sweatt v. Painter; helped to found Texas Southern University | ||
| James Wheaton | 1945 | Actor, director and educator | [3] |
[edit] References
- ^ James Farmer Biography: Greensboro Voices. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.
- ^ Conrad O. Johnson: Hall of Fame profile. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.
- ^ James Wheaton at the Internet Movie Database
[edit] External links
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