My question is what is Greenville College and what it means to its Alumunae, students, faculty and the community it resides in? Maybe we need to think long and hard about where our values are? What do you want to say to your community and the world at large?

Greenville is an older college and it building are getting older. Maybe the first step that needs to be taken it to look at the building that are currently on campus and see what they need before it too late to save them.

Greenville gets its resources from the generous donations of it alumunae, faculty and friends of the college and you need to be good stewards of what you have been given. Letting buildings fall into disrepair is not being good stewards of the resources you have been given.

Greenville is college first and foremost. It is there to educate young men and women in how to be live their lives as Christians in a world that getting more hostile to Christians everyday. What does the faculty need to train these young men and women? Obviously you are managing without an administration building so do you really need it? Could you use that same money and build a computer science curriculum so could attract more students who want to study computer science or science period. We need Christians in these careers influencing their peers. Whether we admit it or not this is the future and Greenville has not kept up. What are the real needs of the college? Do we need to look at faculty salaries so we can attract teachers who can’t afford to work at our faculty’s salaries?

I am from a family with a long family history at Greenville College. My grandparents met there and graduated from Greenville. My parents and most of my aunts and uncles and many first cousins graduated f rom Greenville. I have visited this campus many times over a 50 year period. I think Hogue Hall has served is purpose but we need to on. It is a building it is not Greenville College.

There are more important issues here than a building. What is the future of Greenville College? What role is it going to continue to play in the Christian community. My prayer is that you consider what is really important to Greenville’s future.

Donna Nall

As parents we searched for a college whose values reflected what we endeavoured to teach our children. While visiting campuses, Greenville immediately imparted a sense of treasured history and a valuing of Wesleyan principles. The physical presentation of the campus with its mix of historic and new buildings imparted a sense of balance; forward thinking while upholding foundations. We sacrificed much while entrusting our daughter to Greenville.

It may seem a small matter to relocate Hogue Hall or rebuild in a different style, but the primary issue is trust. You need to honour your commitment not just to recent alumni and the people of Greenville, but to the core values of our faith and all those who have developed/attended/supported the institution over its history.
Be true to your word, full of integrity and let the campus reflect those values.

Would it be possible for a post to be made to let us know when the next meetings are and if the Hogue Hall project will be on the agenda?

Thanks. We continue to pray for God’s blessing and guidance to be on GC.

Gary

1) I concur largely with Donna Hart, Matt Good, and Kate Netzler. During my tenure as student, current resources tended to be managed in a meager way at best – mismaintenance of Hogue, poor planning in the construction of the basement level of Whitlock with particular emphasis on the recording studios, and numerous other complaints I’ve heard from time to time from colleagues and faculty who simply think that some resources are highly adequate but simply mismanaged. I simply DON’T have money because I’m in grad school, but I’d be hesitant to donate any to redevelopment unless I knew there were specific strategies and plans set in place to make sure the money is used wisely and costly mistakes are avoided again. Even in this post you do not offer very specific details about where you would potentially move Hogue to – this does not testify well to the level you value the alumni and friends you seek help from.

2) Despite your lack of detailed information, it behooves me to mention that one of the alternatives that I heard about from word of mouth while perchance visiting the campus was that Hogue be moved a matter of only a few feet south on the lawn in order to make more room for the building to be larger, more handicap accessible, and to include student space on the interiors. With this particular plan I concur. A matter of perhaps 20-50 feet would allow for all those things and not drastically move the iconic center of the campus.

David, please be more open with us. I know you’re trying hard to keep a firm balance of what information is disbursed, but we the alumni need more to trust you.

All best.

collossal mistake. Hogue has done a difficult thing: it has become an icon for our

college. You can’t BUILD icons, you have to just be wise enough to know one when

you see one. Substantially changing either the appearance or cental location of the

old Hogue would be a profoundly UNwise thing to do.

I also would like to say that Donna Hart deserves some kudos for hitting on two

important points: 1) Greenville has a demonstrated history of not taking care of the

assets it has, and 2) they are continually asking for new investment (money from

alums). Regular (heck, even irregular) building inspections and a little

preventative maintenance would have probably kept Hogue Hall standing. I asked at

the last Alumni meetup I attended if there were any plans to put a building inspection and maintenance policy in place so that this doesn’t happen again, but nobody knew anything. That doesn’t give me the impression that the college is learning from its mistakes. I don’t think alumni should be expected to fund new projects if existing ones aren’t taken care of properly.

I have also been surprised at the very quick (and seemingly casual) way that Greenville has brushed aside some of the traditions that were supposedly so meaningful and important. As much as I made fun of the traditions as a student, I was moved by the symbolism of walking through Hogue Hall to the ivy-cutting (despite the lack of accessibility of the building…but that is another topic). I respected Greenville’s obvious acknowledgment and celebration of the past and I was grateful that they seemed to have a very good grasp on balancing their past and their future.

But lately I have I’m disappointed with the lack of care that Greenville has shown to its buildings over the years. The old buildings make up much of the charm of the campus and really influence the experience that students have there. As an alumna who spent four years on the staff of The Papyrus I can say that we were absolutely influenced by being located in Archer Hall. There was a feeling of continuing a legacy and knowing that we were following in the footsteps of students before us who were committed to similar goals and ideas. I felt lucky to be able to be a part of that. But the more new buildings Greenville builds, the more Greenville looks and feels like every other small Christian liberal arts college. I know that Greenville desperately needs more lodging and more accessible lodging, but I am still surprised that more creative thought is not being put into the ways Greenville uses the space it has. Tearing buildings down cannot be the only answer. I thought Greenville was supposed to be different?

The Northcott house is a much older house than the ones surrounding it, and was the home of the only high state official from Greenville (Northcott was a Lieutenant Governor sometime in the 1890’s). The inside of the Northcott House is pretty much in its historic state downstairs, with a parquet oak floor in the dining room and rare pressed buffalo leather wainscotting in the front hall and stairway. Right now, this building is in private hands, and the owner DOES NOT want to sell it to the college (there is also a historic carriage house, the last left in Greenville, on the property).

But, the college has designs on this historic property and the privately owned law office in another historic home next to it. The college has plans to tear these houses down (along with Kaufmann Building and Archer Hall) to build its chapel there (why? So students won’t have to cross College Ave? Honestly? They cross it already to get to the Music Center!)

The owner doesn’t want to sell to the college, but she can’t wait forever to sell it. The college is very good at waiting people out, then tearing down their historic houses. This has got to stop, or Greenville won’t have any historic homes left! Bass-Mollett (aka Hoiles Mansion) is a case in point; the college could have cared for it, and it would have made a better Alumni House than the one they have now. The Music House (John Bradford House) is already gone, along with the beautiful houses that used to stand on north Spruce Street. Dr. Luzader’s house (she was a pioneering woman doctor, and a very early Greenville grad) is gone now too. How long will Dr. McAllister’s cute little Mission style bungalow last? Or the Hoiles’ arts and crafts “English cottage” style home on Beaumont?

I am currently the vice president of the Bond County Historical Society. When I was a student, one of the things I loved about Greenville College was its wealth of historic houses! Little by little, they are all disappearing, to be replaced by decidedly ugly or undistinguished boxy industrial looking buildings. We need to save what little we have left (Bass-Mollett, Hoiles House, McAllister, the Burkhart Center, and Archer Hall). We don’t need to move Hogue Hall to the place where the chapel SHOULD be located so that other historic homes will be needlessly torn down.

If the tower were to resemble the old Hogue Hall, the college could even keep its logo (which is a picture of the old Hogue Hall Tower!) and not spend another hundred thousand dollars coming up with a new logo (I remember how much it cost to come up with the one it is currently using!)

I believe the bell tower is a dominant feature of the memory of the college; Tower Press, Tower Products, all keeping the college alive when it could have disappeared during the depression. I remember David Hoag telling me that if the old building came down, they could build a close facsimile of it on the outside; I’m not even asking for the whole building to be an exact replica of the old one, but just that the south (street-facing) facade look more like the old Hogue Hall than the current architect’s scheme of it. The north side of the building can stay the same, and the interior can be whatever they want. But, I want something that looks like the old Hogue when I pass by the campus on College Ave.

Right now, the “hole” where the historic building once stood makes me sad and makes me think of what could have been had the college gone along with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency’s recommendation to save the historic facade (and at a cost that would be no more than that of building a whole new building.) There was too much of a hurry to tear the old building down, and I hope we don’t rush into building something that will be regrettable and forgettable (and tacky) architecturally when we could put something special and meaningful back in place.