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Lebanon Valley College

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Lebanon Valley College

Lebanon Valley College (LVC, Lebanon Valley, or The Valley) is a private university in Annville, Pennsylvania.

Lebanon Valley College was founded on February 23, 1866, with classes beginning May 7 of that year and its first class graduating in 1870. Expenses at this time for a full year were $206.50 (equal to approximately $5,260 in 2025) and remained relatively unchanged for the next 50 years.

The college was founded by and initially associated with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Today, Lebanon Valley College is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, which occurred through a series of church mergers: The Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged with the Evangelical Association in 1946 creating the Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB), which subsequently merged with the Methodist Church in 1968 to create the United Methodist Church. The ties to the Methodist Church are not as strong as they once were, which is evidenced by the lack of mandatory chapel services, but the church maintains a presence on the campus. Out of 34 colleges and academies founded by the United Brethren in Christ Church, Lebanon Valley was one of four to survive.

The campus began as a single building, the empty Annville Academy building, which was purchased for $4,500 (equal to $100,000 in 2025) by five Annville citizens. They presented the building as a gift to the East Pennsylvania Conference of the United Brethren Church to settle the argument over where to establish the college. In a little more than two months from its founding, 12 trustees were appointed, President Thomas R. Vickroy was elected, the building was repaired and redecorated, a curriculum was devised, faculty recruited, and classes began. The college was entirely contained in that one building (class rooms, student residence, president's residence, and "dining hall") until 1868, when "North College" was opened at a cost of $31,500, equal to $760,000 in 2025. The Annville Academy building became known as "South Hall" or "Ladies Hall" as the North College building was now the home to the men's dormitories.

The college charter, granted in 1867, specifically stated that Lebanon Valley College was established for the education of both sexes, so Lebanon Valley College can claim that it has been coeducational longer than any other college east of the Allegheny Mountains. However, the curricula were different for men and women, a condition created from a compromise after an uproar in the founding church over the equal treatment of men and women. The "Ladies Course" included modern languages, painting, drawing, wax flower and fruit making, and music. By 1878, the college catalog began announcing that experience showed that there was no difference between men and women in their ability to master college courses, an unpopular idea at its time.

This was also the time of the founding literary societies: Philokosmian, Clionian, and Kalozetean, which bear no resemblance to their present fraternity and sorority selves. They met regularly to debate topics and discuss essays. Other activities included mixed socials, parades, the annual Chestnut Picnic, and other special events throughout the years.

The college steadily grew during its first 35 years, and by 1904, the campus had expanded to include Engle Hall, home of the music department, and a partially completed library funded by Andrew Carnegie. On Christmas Eve 1904, North College (not to be confused with the residence hall with the same name), which stood in the current footprint of the Administration/Humanities building, burned down. The next year, the college raised funds to rebuild and also began expanding the campus further, building not only a new Administration Building (the current Humanities Building), but also North Hall (a women's dorm, currently the site of Miller Chapel), Kreider Hall (a men's residence hall where the current Neidig-Garber Science Center is located), the central heating plant (still in existence), a science building, and a gymnasium. However, funding ran out, debt rose, and building halted on the gym and science buildings. President Hervin U. Roop resigned in disgrace on New Year's Day, 1906. It was not until President Lawrence W. Keister took office on June 12, 1907, that the debt situation was solved. Thanks to his fundraising efforts, the debt was eliminated by 1911. The college landscape remained relatively unchanged for the next four decades, under the leadership of President George D. Gossard (1912–1932) and Clyde A. Lynch (1932–1950).

Cultural changes at LVC paralleled those in the rest of the country, moving through World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the New Deal.

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