Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

John R. Thelin
had a positive influence on the independent college sector.
The two-year colleges shored up their curricula, faculties, and
physical plants—and transformed themselves into four-year
colleges that now conferred bachelor’s degrees. This trend is
typified by Berry College in Georgia. Originally a secondarylevel
training school for boys in the early 20 th century, it
gradually expanded to coeducation and then to offering the
two-year associate’s degree. In the late 1950s Berry worked
with regional accreditation teams to transform its mission to
collegiate, baccalaureate work while eliminating its secondary
school. Similar initiatives to add or reinstate a bachelor’s
degree program took place at other institutions, including
Averett College (now University) in Virginia, Lindsey Wilson
College in Kentucky, and later Stephens College in Missouri.
The second policy recommendation from state
governments and the Carnegie Commission—namely,
welcoming more students by expanding the size of entering
freshman classes—elicited mixed responses from the private
colleges. The sticking point was not a lack of interest.
Rather, the colleges faced a paradox of popularity. If a college
expanded its entering class too much, it risked forfeiting the
small size that made it both distinctive and educationally
effective. For most colleges, the reasonable compromise was a
careful monitoring of modest growth.
Berry College
in Georgia,
originally a
secondary-level
training school
for boys, worked
with regional
accreditation
teams to
transform
its mission
to collegiate,
baccalaureate
work.
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