McDaniel College

McDaniel College is a private college in Westminster, Maryland, United States. Established in 1867, it was known as Western Maryland College until 2002 when it was renamed McDaniel College in honor of an alumnus who gave a lifetime of service to the college. The college also has a satellite campus, McDaniel College Budapest, in Budapest, Hungary. McDaniel College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The college owns and manages a shopping center and residential properties through its for-profit arm.

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 1866–1867, with an inaugural class of 37 men and women in September 1867. 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 (1.8 m) 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.

In 1975 the college agreed to permanently remove religious symbols atop campus chapels and to introduce strict quotas on Methodist representation on the college board and among the faculty as a result of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Up until the 1980s, there was a specially constructed bunker in the basement of Lewis Hall, the science building, that would have housed the Wartime Information Security Program, a Cold War-era group that would have been responsible for censorship in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

McDaniel College Budapest (formerly known as Western Maryland College Budapest), the European campus of McDaniel College was established in collaboration with College International Budapest in 1994. McDaniel College was also home to the summer training camp of the Baltimore Colts and later Baltimore Ravens NFL team until the 2011 Season when the team relocated training camp 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.