Rollins College is a private liberal arts college in Winter Park, Florida, United States. It was founded in 1885. Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institution and oldest private university, it has an approximate enrollment of 3,000 students, composed of roughly 2,500 undergraduates and 500 postgraduates.
History Rollins College is Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institution, and has been independent, nonsectarian, and coeducational from conception. Lucy Cross, founder of the Daytona Institute for Young Women in 1880, first placed the matter of establishing a college in Florida before the Congregational Churches in 1884. In 1885, the church put her on the committee in charge of determining the location of their first college in Florida. Cross is known as the "Mother of Rollins College." Rollins was incorporated, organized, and named in the Lyman Park building in nearby Sanford, Florida, on April 28, 1885, opening for classes in Winter Park on November 4 of that year. It was established by New England Congregationalists who sought to bring their style of liberal arts education to the frontier St. John's basin. A commemorative plaque listing the names of the founders was dedicated 1 March 1954 and is displayed in historic Downtown Sanford.
Early benefactors of Rollins College included Chicago businessman Alonzo Rollins (1832–1887), for whom the college is named. Rollins made substantial donations to enable the founding of the college, and was a trustee and its first treasurer.Gayle Prince Rajtar, Steve Rajtar, Winter Park Chronicles, 2011, page 35
Another early benefactor was Franklin Fairbanks of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Fairbanks was president of Fairbanks Scales, a founder of Winter Park, a donor to Rollins College, and a trustee.Winter Park Public Library, Winter Park History Digital Collections: Colonel Franklin Fairbanks, retrieved January 14, 2014
In March of 1936 during a visit to Central Florida, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt was conferred an honorary degree in literature at the Knowles Chapel on campus. Other U.S. presidents who have visited the campus include Calvin Coolidge (1930), Harry Truman (1949), Ronald Reagan (1976; prior to his 1980 election), and Barack Obama (2012).
Firing of John Andrew Rice and required loyalty pledge President Hamilton Holt decided to require all professors to make a "loyalty pledge" to keep their jobs. In March 1933, Holt fired John Andrew Rice, an atheist scholar and unorthodox teacher, whom Holt had hired, along with three other "golden personalities" (as Holt called them), in his push to put Rollins on the cutting edge of innovative education, for refusing to sign the loyalty pledge. The widely publicized case was investigated by the American Association of University Professors, which censured Rollins. It is known as the "Rollins College Case" among historians of tenure. The four fired faculty quickly founded experimental Black Mountain College, with a gift from a former Rollins College faculty member.Mary Seymour, "The Ghosts of Rollins (and Other Skeletons in the Closet)", Rollins Magazine, fall 2011, http://www.rollins.edu/magazine/fall-2011/ghosts-of-rollins-2.html ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/40218822
Okinawa statue In October 1994, the school made international headlines when the government of Japan, per the request of its Okinawa Prefecture, asked for the return of a statue that was taken as war loot after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 by Clinton C. Nichols, at that time, a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy and a Rollins alumnus. Nichols had presented the statue of Ninomiya Sontoku, a prominent 19th-century Japanese agricultural leader, philosopher, moralist, and economist, to then-President Hamilton Holt, who promised to display the statue permanently in the main lobby of the Warren Administration Building. The statue was returned to Okinawa in 1995 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. In addition to providing the school with a replica of the original statue, the government of Okinawa and Rollins pledged to develop additional cooperative projects between the college and Shogaku Junior and Senior High School, the Okinawan school where the original statue has been placed.
Kairis case On March 31, 1998, the body of Jennifer Leah Kairis, a sophomore student, was found in her Ward Hall dormitory room by a residential assistant. Kairis, who had attended a fraternity party by a chapter on campus hours before she had died, was both legally intoxicated and had a large amount of prescription drugs in her system.Wrongs of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing, and Binge Drinking from Google Books. Retrieved on 2011-02-11 At first, the assistant medical examiner at the Orange County coroner's office ruled Kairis' death as a homicide. However, that conclusion was quickly changed after Shashi Gore, the county's chief medical examiner ruled that she had died as a result of an accidental prescription drug overdose. Kairis' parents, who always believed their daughter was raped and murdered by her college boyfriend, requested a lengthy state investigation into their daughter's death due to their belief that the Winter Park Police Department botched the case. On March 4, 2004, Bruce Hyma, the Miami-Dade County chief medical examiner and expert toxicologist hired by State Attorney Lawson Lamar ruled that Kairis had committed suicide via a prescription drug overdose. The seven-year investigation was officially closed on April 13, 2005.
Campus
The campus contains a range of amenities, including a theater for performing arts; the Cornell Campus Center; and the Alfond Sports Center. The college is in Winter Park, Florida, across from Park Avenue.
Architecture
The Rollins campus features Spanish and Mediterranean Revival style architecture. According to College Historian Jack C. Lane, the Spanish-Mediterranean style blended best with the natural environment of Florida, and that Rollins 8th president Hamilton Holt felt "the college's unified curriculum should be reflected in the architectural style." Rollins' campus architecture has stayed consistent since its opening.
Pugsley Hall and Mayflower Hall In 1930, President Holt announced the gifts of Cornelius Pugsley and an anonymous donor for the construction of two women's dormitories, with their interiors designed by Virginia Huntington Robie. Pugsley and Mayflower Halls were dedicated in 1931. Mayflower Hall received its name from the Pilgrim ship. The Society of Friends at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, gave Rollins a 16-inch section of beam from the ship, which, it had been discovered, had been salvaged to build a haybarn in England. The block of wood was placed above the fireplace in Mayflower Hall. Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity moved into Pugsley Hall in 1997.
Chase Hall Chase Hall was built in 1908 and named for Loring Augustus Chase. It was built using white sand-lime brick with stone trim and a Ludowici tile roof. At its construction it contained eight double and six single rooms, along with a large common room.
The hall was used as a men's dormitory through 1966. Until 1999 it was used by the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, followed by the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. The Lucy Cross Center for Women and Their Allies was established in 2010 at Rollins College in Chase Hall, Room 205. The center is named after Lucy Cross, the "Mother of Rollins College."
Hooker Hall Hooker Hall was named after, the first president of Rollins College, Edward Payson Hooker (1838-1904). The building was originally used as housing for the Theta Kappa Nu fraternity then, in 1939, the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity moved in. Hooker was a Chi Psi at Middlebury College (Mu '54) and played an integral part in bringing the Chi Psi chapter, Alpha Mu Delta, to Rollins in 1977. Today, Hooker Hall is home to the Chi Psi fraternity, and is known to many faculty and students as The Chi Psi Lodge.
Pinehurst Cottage The Rollins College website states that Pinehurst Cottage and Knowles I, the two structures established when the college founded, suffered a fire in 1909 which destroyed Knowles Hall and scorched Pinehurst's exterior. Pinehurst, originally a women's residence hall, over the years transformed into a men's dormitory, co-ed dormitory, the home of President Ward, a Library, chemistry lab, infirmary and then classroom. In November 1985, Pinehurst received Winter Park's Historic Preservation Commission's Historic Landmark award. The college renovated to maintain the building's original appearance. Today, Pinehurst is a co-ed residence hall that houses a special interest group which promotes academic fulfillment outside the classroom.
Alfond Boathouse Built in 1988 to fulfill the Rollins College waterski and sailing teams' needs. The Alfond Boathouse sits on lake Virginia and has a total of 3 offices used by the waterski and sailing coaches, as well as a classroom, boat bay and observation deck. The exterior was renovated in 2016.
Peace Monument
Erected in 1938 and dedicated on Armistice Day by college president Hamilton Holt, it consists of a German artillery shell, surrendered by Germany at the end of the First World War, mounted on a pedestal, bearing an inscribed poem by Hamilton Holt titled "Pause, passerby and hang your head in shame."
Winter Park Institute The Winter Park Institute, located in the Osceola Lodge on Interlachen Avenue, brings scholars, leaders, and artists from diverse fields of disciplines and expertise to the Rollins campus for symposiums, seminars, lectures, interviews, exhibits, readings, and master classes that are always free and open to the public. Following the legacy began by President Hamilton Holt and continued by President Hugh McKean, the Institute launched in the fall of 2008, the first guest being U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, who has returned every year since. Many prominent singers and speakers have appeared there.
Olin Library Rollins' Olin Library was dedicated in 1985, with a US$4.7 million grant from the F.W. Olin Foundation ($ today). It is four stories high, with containing thousands of volumes, periodicals, serials, electronic resources, a number of special collections, and hundreds of compact discs, DVDs, and videotapes. From 1909 until 2011, the library was a federal government documents repository. Olin still provides access to hundreds of online government resources. Olin Library was one of three recipients of the 2013 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award.
Olin Electronic Research and Information Center The Olin Electronic Research and Information Center was also established in 1998 with a second gift of US$2.7 million from the F.W. Olin Foundation ($ today). The center features the latest technology, including computer stations, color printers, scanners, audio and video digitizers, compact discs, videodiscs, and videotapes. These tools facilitate creativity as students pursue research questions, prepare multimedia presentations, and create Web pages.
Origins as a "Carnegie Library"