McDaniel College



McDaniel College (est. 1867) is a private four-year liberal arts college in Westminster, Maryland, United States, located 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Baltimore. The college also has a satellite campus located in Budapest, Hungary. Until July 2002, it was known as Western Maryland College. As of July 2002 the school has been renamed McDaniel College in honor of an alumnus who gave a lifetime of service to the college. McDaniel College is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. McDaniel College is one of 40 colleges profiled in the book Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope.

History
The college was founded in 1867 as Western Maryland College, and was named for the Western Maryland Railroad because the college's first Board chairman, John Smith of Wakefield, was also the president of the railroad. (Neither the railroad nor the Methodist Protestant Church contributed funds to facilitate the establishment of the college. Some contributions, however, were received from Methodist Protestant laymen, including John Smith.) It had a voluntary fraternal affiliation with the Methodist Protestant (later United Methodist) Church from 1868 until 1974; the adjacent but separate institution, the Westminster Theological Seminary, was a principal site for training Methodist Protestant (later United Methodist) clergy in the Maryland region. The ties with the United Methodist Church were cut over a court case in which Western Maryland and other religiously affiliated schools in Maryland were being challenged over state funding received by the colleges because of their religious ties. The other schools retained their affiliations and won the case.

The college's first building went up in 1867, with an inaugural class of 37 men and women. Western Maryland was the first coeducational institution south of the Mason-Dixon Line and was among the first in the nation. The school's original charter read that the school would exist: "For the benefit of students without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national or ethnic origin ... without requiring or enforcing any sectarian, racial or civil test, and without discrimination on the basis of sex, national or ethnic origin, nor shall any prejudice be made in the choice of any officer, teacher, or other employee in the said college on account of these factors." However, Western Maryland College was primarily a school without minority race representation until the 1960s.

Baker Memorial Chapel was dedicated April 20, 1958. The chapel, was built in memory of W.G. Baker, Joseph D. Baker, Daniel Baker, and Sarah Baker. The organ in the new chapel has been given by two alumni, father and son, Roger J. Whiteford, a prominent Washington attorney and graduate in 1906, and his son Joseph S. Whiteford a graduate in 1943, president of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, Mass. The chapel was designed by architects Otto Eugene Adams and E.G. Riggs, of Baltimore. The Chapel steeple, 113 feet tall, is visible for miles around and was originally topped by a stainless steel cross 6 feet in height. The wood panels of the chancel have been designed to complement the antique organ console which was originally in the Bruton Parish Church, at Williamsburg, Virginia. The organ, with its 2,310 pipes, is held to be the largest in the area. The Whitefords also gave the carillon installed in the steeple.

McDaniel College Budapest (formerly known as Western Maryland College Budapest) was established in collaboration with College International Budapest in 1994. McDaniel College was also home to the summer training camp of the Baltimore Ravens NFL team until the 2011 Season when the team chose to relocate spring training to their Owings Mills facility. Newer buildings on campus include the Science Hall, gymnasium, library, and student union center. On January 11, 2002, the trustees announced their unanimous decision to change the name of the college. On July 1, 2002, WMC officially became McDaniel College, honoring alumnus William Roberts McDaniel and his 65-year association with the school. The naming process during the spring of 2002 included input from students, faculty and alumni about possible names. On January 12, 2007, the college suffered a tragic loss when its second-year men's basketball coach, Bob Flynn, died of a massive heart attack at his home in Catonsville, Maryland, at the age of 49. Flynn had guided McDaniel to a 7-6 record through the first two months of the 2006-07 season, its best start in two decades.

Academics
McDaniel College is a liberal arts school that is founded on having many majors to pick from. The administration as well as the students have worked together to create over sixty undergraduate majors and nearly twenty graduate programs. McDaniel also offers over one hundred different minors. McDaniel in 2002 created the McDaniel Plan, which was the first of its kind, and it is renowned nationally for its innovative way of grasping the students to make education their own.

The McDaniel Plan
The McDaniel Plan provides a liberal education that combines a comprehensive program of general education and a rigorous program in the major. The program is complemented by electives and a range of special opportunities, that include but are not limited to directed studies, internships, and practicums. The requirements of The McDaniel Plan apply to all first-year students who enroll in college for the Bachelor of Arts degree. The redesign of the general education curriculum, The McDaniel Plan, emphasizes intellectual skills that will be crucial to graduates. The focus of The McDaniel Plan is to make studies incorporate critical thinking, cogent writing, analytic reading, persuasive public speaking, effective collaboration, the ability to adapt to change and bridge cultural differences.

Athletics
McDaniel is a charter member of the Centennial Conference, an athletic conference that includes Swarthmore, Ursinus, Haverford, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Bryn Mawr, Gettysburg, and Johns Hopkins.

McDaniel college has 24 NCAA Division III sports teams and is named the Green Terror, which in 1999 was rank 13th for U.S. News & World Report weirdest mascot names. The name originated from how teams would describe the Western Maryland Players as "Terrors" on the field. The name stuck and since October 1923 McDaniel College has been known as the Green Terror. In 2011, McDaniel was rank 6th in the country for best tailgating by The Weather Channel, due the ability for fans to park their cars practically on the field and actually grill & drink, a tradition that dates to 1920s. At football games McDaniel can have an average attendance over 5,000 and highs as much as 7,200 during a .500 season, ranking in the top five in the country for D3 football. Until 2010 the Baltimore Ravens, and before that the Baltimore Colts, held their training camps at McDaniel College. Head coach John Harbaugh still hosts clinics at McDaniel.

Football
The Green Terror have historic past with many legendary coaches and players; such as quarterback Eugene "Stoney" Willis, who invented the Shovel Pass; All-American and five-time All-NFL running back Bill Shepherd and Hall of Fame coaches Dick Harlow and Rip Engle. McDaniel football dates back to 1891 when the first game was played against northern rival Gettysburg College.

The Green Terror would become a power house in college football in the 1920s and 1930s. During these decades the Terror Squad had 3 undefeated seasons, despite only having around 500 students. The Green Terror were nationally rank and were commonly, beating schools such as Boston College & Bucknell University 40 to Nothing. Other impressive victories included, beating University of Maryland College Park 39-7, Georgetown University 20 to 0, and Temple University 23 to 0. Many of these victories were played in front of +20,000 crowds at Baltimore Memorial Stadium. Such was the case when they won the MacArthur Cup handed out by the General Douglas MacArthur, when The Terror beat an all Army Team made up of the best players from all the regional army bases, 48-0.

In 1934, during the Great Depression, Western Maryland was invited to play in the first Orange Bowl. Coach Dick Harlow, unable to budget the trip because of hard economic times, declined so that his players could play in the then more prestigious East–West Shrine Game, which hosted over 55,000 fans. In the initial Orange Bowl (which only 5,000 attended ) Bucknell, shut out earlier in the season by The Terror, defeated the Miami Hurricanes 26-0.

In 1947 The Green Terror football team was featured in a cartoon in the New Yorker before a Western Maryland – Harvard Crimson game. Soon after World War II, WMC decided to play only other small colleges described as the college's natural rivals. It was then that McDaniel's arch rivalry (its old one being College Park), began with Johns Hopkins. The McDaniel-Hopkins rivalry game has annually been the last game of the regular season since 1947 and played over 90 times since their first meeting in 1894. Since 2009 it has become a trophy game known as the Maryland Railroad Lantern game.

Another historic moment was in 1992 when McDaniel became the first college football team to play in Russia. Against an all-Europe team The Terror won 47–4. In the 1990s and 2000s the Terror would go on to be nationally ranked for D3 football and have great players such as running back Eric Frees who would go on to set the then NCAA D3 rushing record in 1992.

Greek life
Currently McDaniel has 4 sororities and 4 fraternities. The sororities are Phi Alpha Mu, a local sorority, and Alpha Sigma Tau, Phi Sigma Sigma, and Phi Mu which are national. The fraternities are Alpha Gamma Tau, a local fraternity, and Phi Delta Theta, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Alpha Sigma Phi which are national. Currently 20% of the student body is involved in Greek life.

Notable alumni
Sen. Frederick C. Malkus, Jr. (1934) Maryland state legislator for 48 years, longer than anyone in the nation
 * Stephen Bainbridge (1980), William D. Warren Professor of Law at UCLA
 * Harold Baines Jr., son of former MLB player Harold Baines Sr., drafted by Chicago White Sox in the 45th round of 2009 Amateur Draft
 * Whittaker Chambers (1959-1961: adult student), Spy, author, journalist, editor, and central witness in the Alger Hiss Case
 * Karen Clark (1979), Internationally recognized expert in the field of catastrophe risk assessment and management
 * J. Allison Conley (1947), FBI deputy assistant director, supervisor in abduction cases of Barbara Jane Mackle and Patty Hearst
 * Wayne K. Curry (1972), Maryland politician
 * Alonzo G. Decker (trustee), Co-founder of tool manufacturer Black and Decker
 * Rip Engle (1930), Head football coach at Penn State (1950–1965), member of the College Football Hall of Fame
 * Bernard Franklin, M.Ed.’78 executive vice president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) membership and student-athlete affairs and the chief inclusion officer.
 * Robert Gill (1910), WWI soldier, Brigadier General and adjutant for Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson in the Nuremberg trials
 * William F. Goodling (M1959), U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania (1975–2001)
 * Wade Kach (1970), Maryland politician
 * Robert J. Kleine (1963), Treasurer of the State of Michigan
 * Frank M. Kratovil, Jr. (1990), former U.S. Congressman from Maryland
 * David Lacquement (1977), United States Army Major General awarded Defense Superior Service Medal (One Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal (Three Oak Leaf Clusters), Joint Service Commendation Medal (One Oak Leaf Cluster), Army Commendation Medal (One Oak Leaf Cluster), Army Achievement Medal (One Oak Leaf Cluster) and the Master Parachutist Badge.
 * Harrison Stanford Martland (1905), Pathologist noted for discoveries regarding exposure to radiation and “punch drunk” prize fighters
 * Joshua Weldon Miles (1878), U.S. Congressman from Maryland (1895–1897)
 * Otto J. Guenther (1963), Lieutenant General, the Army’s first chief information officer, Director at Widepoint, and was vice president & general manager of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Tactical Systems Division
 * James "Jim" Wilberger, Hollywood producer, who has produced such films as Gettysburg, featuring Martin Sheen, and James Dean, starring James Franco.
 * Caleb Wilson O'Connor (x1898), NBC Vice president and successful composer & lyricist of over 200 songs, including many college fight songs such as Yale's "Down on the field" and University of Pennsylvania "Cheer Pennsylvania." He was also a voice coach at NBC and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
 * Alan Rabinowitz (1974), Author of several books on conservation of wildlife, CEO of Panthera
 * Thomas Roberts (1994), Daytime anchor and occasional prime time fill-in on MSNBC, former anchor for CNN Headline News
 * Grace Rohrer (1946), North Carolina politician, arts advocate and women's rights activist
 * Wendy Ruderman (1991), Pulitzer Prize winning journalist of the Philadelphia Daily News
 * Leroy Merritt (1952), Baltimore businessman and founder of Merritt Properties
 * Ellen Sauerbrey (1959), former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Maryland gubernatorial candidate
 * F. Mason Sones, Jr. (1940), Cardiologist, inventor of coronary angiography
 * Stephen Spinelli (1977), President of Philadelphia University, Co-founder of Jiffy Lube
 * Suzanne Stettinius (2011), modern pentathlete representing the United States at the 2012 Olympics
 * Nancy R. Stocksdale (1956), Maryland politician
 * Greg Street (1991), Lead game designer at Blizzard Entertainment, lead systems designer for World of Warcraft
 * Joseph S. Whiteford (1943), President of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, Mass