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Davidson College is a private liberal arts college for 1,700 students in Davidson, North Carolina. Bobby Vagt '69 is its president. The College was established by Presbyterians in 1837, though as recently as 2005 it has adjusted and rearticulated its now largely nominal religious affiliation. According to its Board of Trustees, the College "values the life of the spirit and fosters openness to and respect for the world's various faith traditions." Majors are offered in over twenty fields, as are several minors and self-designed interdisciplinary options. The college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine.

Location

The campus is located near Lake Norman, in the town of Davidson, North Carolina (pop. 8,100) just north of Charlotte.

Institution

Davidson is known as an extremely intellectually rigorous college and is notorious for its difficult grading standards.

Moreover, according to the Princeton Review, it is ranked in the top twenty colleges nationally for the following categories: "Best Overall Academic Experience For Undergraduates," "Professors Get High Marks," "Professors Make Themselves Accessible," and "Their Students Never Stop Studying." * Davidson students often complain about a lack of name recognition among the American public. The school became co-educational in 1971, and today maintains a 50/50 ratio of men to women. A very high percentage of Davidson graduates enter the legal profession, medicine, and government service.

Admissions

Admission to Davidson is among the most selective in the country. * For the class of 2009, the admissions rate was a bit under 27%. The middle 50% of the SAT range was 1350-1490.

According to the Davidson College Office of Admission & Financial Aid: "Davidson College is dedicated to intellectual and cultural growth in the broadest sense. Davidson prides itself on a student body made up of the nation's most talented young people, chosen not only for their academic promise, but also for their character.

Faculty and admission personnel work together to select students for admission. The selection process is composed of three major elements: 1) the evaluation of academic performance and potential; 2) the assessment of individual characteristics; and 3) the recognition of outstanding interests, achievements, and activities. These three elements are used to gain an understanding of each student's academic and personal strengths and, thus, give an overall evaluation of the individual's eligibility for admission." *

Honor code

The Davidson College honor code states: "Every student shall be honor bound to refrain from cheating (including plagiarism). Every student shall be honor bound to refrain from stealing. Every student shall be honor bound to refrain from lying about College business. Every student shall be honor bound to report immediately all violations of the Honor Code of which the student has first-hand knowledge; failure to do so shall be a violation of the Honor Code. Every student found guilty of a violation shall ordinarily be dismissed from the College. Every member of the College community is expected to be familiar with the operation of the Honor Code." Because of this Honor Code, Davidson students take self scheduled un-proctored finals, and many exams (known as "reviews" in Davidson vernacular) are take-home. On every piece of submitted work, Davidson students (sometimes implicitly) sign: "On my honor, I pledge that I have neither given nor received help on this work, I have followed and will continue to observe all regulations regarding it, and I am unaware of any violations of the Honor Code by others." *

Notable alumni

Oddly enough, Davidson has also graduated a relatively high number of Division I head baseball coaches who have had intersecting careers including Peter Hughes, formerly head coach of Boston College and now head coach of Virginia Tech, Mikio Aoki, current head coach of Boston College formerly of Columbia University, and Brett Boretti, current coach of Columbia University.

Recent news

In early 2005, the College's Board of Trustees voted in a 31-5 decision to allow 20% of the board to be non-Christian. John Belk, the former mayor of Charlotte and one of the heirs of Belk Department Store, was a casualty of this decision, resigning in protest after more than six decades of affiliation with the college. Stephen Smith also resigned.

The Royal Shakespeare Company was in residency for most of the month of March 2005 at Davidson College, performing The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, as well as numerous educational activities, many of which are open to the general public. In 2006 and 2008, the RSC will not present plays; they will only conduct educational programs. Instead, in February 2006, their artists directed scenes from Shakespeare's plays and other theatric materials inspired by Shakespeare, called For Every Passion, Something, with Davidson students as actors. There remains the possibility that the play will be presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Royal Shakespeare Company's actors will next perform plays in Davidson's Duke Family Performance Hall in 2007.

Most recently, on June 8, 2006, President Bobby Vagt announced his resignation, pending a year-long search committee's choice for his successor.

Athletics

Davidson's sports teams are known as the Wildcats and their colors are red and black. The Wildcats participate in the NCAA's Division I as a member of the Southern Conference in most sports; its football program competes in the Division I-AA Pioneer Football League. The basketball team reached the height of its success in the 1960s under Coach Lefty Driesell when it was ranked as the number one team in the country by Sports Illustrated*. Now under the guidance of Coach Bob McKillop the Wildcats consistently post winning seasons. In 2001-2002 the Wildcats won the Southern Conference and went on to lose a close game to Ohio State in the first round of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. In 2004-2005 the Wildcats were undefeated in conference play with a 16-0 record and advanced to the 3rd round of the NIT. In 2005-2006 the Wildcats posted a 20-10 overall record and secured an automatic bid to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship after sweeping the Southern Conference Tournament in Charleston, South Carolina.

In addition to Lefty Driesell and Bob McKillop, a number of notable basketball coaches have coached at Davidson including UNC alumni Larry Brown, current coach of Southern Methodist University and former coach of Notre Dame, University of North Carolina and Florida Atlantic University, Matt Doherty, former University of Virginia coach and Athletic Director Terry Holland '64, current University of Texas coach Rick Barnes, and Jim Larranaga who took George Mason University to the 2006 Final Four.

Points of interest

External links

Charlotte, North Carolina | Liberal arts colleges | Southern Association of Colleges and Schools | Universities and colleges in North Carolina

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Davidson College".

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