The occasion of Carleton’s sesquicentennial is a good time to reflect on a few key decisions made over the years by Carleton’s Board of Trustees, former presidents, and faculty members that fundamentally shaped the college and the path it has followed. While historians and archivists know more about these defining moments than I can discuss here, I will point to three critical choices made in Carleton’s early years that resulted in the superb institution we know today.
First was the decision to be coeducational. Carleton’s initial collegiate class contained two men and two women and, as we all know, the first two graduates—James Dow and Myra Brown—eventually married each other! From day one, our coeducational character distinguished us from peer schools around the country, many of which have struggled with gender equality at various times in their history. Being coeducational from its founding helped prepare Carleton to robustly embrace the educational value of diversity along this and all other dimensions, including the need to attract students of different races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes, among other characteristics. Carleton’s commitment to inclusivity comes across in other ways, too, as evidenced by our decision not to have Greek letter societies on campus. Overall, campus social life has evolved without exclusive or socially restrictive groups—again fostering a strong, healthy sense of a shared community.
Second, I would point to our decision to become a nonsectarian institution. Of course, we value and respect religion and faith at Carleton—we have a beautiful chapel, a powerful chaplaincy, and strong and diverse faith-based programming. We also look to help all students find meaning and purpose in their lives in ways that resonate in their hearts. But it is striking how, even though Carleton was founded by a religious denomination (Congregationalist), the college moved smoothly beyond these roots early in its history. Our nonsectarianism enabled free discourse and brave pursuit and examination of ideas. Some colleges have been (or still are) obligated to select individuals from a particular denomination as trustees, senior administrators, or even faculty members. In contrast, Carleton can recruit the best talent from any walk of life, while always nurturing our faculty members and students in a climate of robust inquiry.
Finally, I would highlight and salute a set of decisions that began with President Donald Cowling and continued through the era of President Laurence Gould to extend Carleton’s geographic reach and impact. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s, Carleton became an increasingly national institution, which transformed our expectations for the kind of students we could enroll and enabled us to recruit faculty members who were recognized intellectual leaders. Widening Carleton’s field of operation and aspiration put us on an arc to become an elite, but not elitist, institution. Many schools that were founded around the same time as Carleton have not been able to reach these heights. Minnesota always will be our geographic home, but by looking beyond local or regional borders, Carleton has stretched its locational and intellectual wings in a way that’s been defining and singularly strengthening for the institution. In recent decades, of course, we have followed a similar “expansionist” strategy to make Carleton a global liberal arts college, with faculty members, students, academic programs, and research spanning the entire world.
These decisions—reconfirmed and deepened over time—made Carleton the inclusive, intellectually bold, and all-around excellent institution we know and cherish today. The combination of these choices set Carleton’s character, goals, and reputation—and I trust we will continue to foster these same values and benefit from these wise decisions for many years to come.