Panel Explores ‘A Guarded Quaker Education’ Dec. 6
November 29, 2012
Students in GST 405, Quaker Faith & Practice, have been studying the evolution of the concept of a “guarded Quaker education” from the founding of New Garden Boarding School 175 years ago to today’s Guilford College.
They have discovered in researching the history of the institution that, while the particular “hedges” that defined that guarded education have changed, there is still a perceptible Quaker ethos at the College that is maintained through similar emphases to those of 1837 — minus the “thees” and “thous,” required plain dress, and prohibition of mingling with the opposite sex.
As a final project the students will facilitate a panel discussion of the evolution of that ethos, featuring past and present faculty and staff who have played a formative role in helping define how Quakerism influences the College. The panel will be held 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in the West Gallery of Founders.
Panelists will include former president Bill Rogers (1980-1996), Beverley Rogers (tentative), Judith Weller Harvey (founding director of Friends Center), Cyril Harvey (retired professor of geology and former Academic Dean), Elwood Parker ’64 (45-year member of the faculty in mathematics), and Aaron Fetrow (VP for Student Life).
Panelists will respond to questions formulated by the students in the course of their study, followed by an open Q&A. All are welcome to join this journey through institutional memory.
