While the wide array of colleges and universities in the suburbs has grown demonstratively in the last 20 years, most have been operating for more than a century, providing a historic academic backdrop to the area’s growing business and residential environment.
The development of the higher education market on the outskirts of Chicago is not surprising, according to Ann Durkin Keating, a suburban historian and professor at North Central College.
“Land was inexpensive and expansion easy,” she said. “Isolation from other influences is part of the college and seminary experience—drawing people away from their everyday experiences, whether on farms or in cities.”
As many of the early colleges here were founded as pre-seminary, the then-rural landscape offered a good fit. Availability of transportation also fanned the flames of growth, she said.
“Most of the colleges and universities founded in the region in the 19th century are along railroad lines at stops, whether a regular stop or a flag stop,” she said. “The railroad allowed for a rural location but easy access. This is true for North Central, which moved from Plainfield to Naperville in 1870 to get rail access, and also for Wheaton, Elmhurst, Lake Forest, Northwestern, and more.”
The move from secondary schools to collegiate life was quick for many institutions, but there was vagueness between the two levels. For example, North Central’s secondary school, Naperville Academy, would emerge once the college moved from Plainfield. Similarly, St. Procopius Academy split from its founding college, now Benedictine University. Today, the Benedictine high school is Benet Academy.
“In the nineteenth century, the line between high schools and colleges was just being worked out,” Keating said. “Many institutions combined both a high school and a college, as well as business tracks and tracks for seminarians and women.”
In fact, it has been the technological explosion of business and industry in the suburban market that has most dramatically affected higher education in the suburbs. The trend toward business education has resulted in the arrival national technical schools like DeVry and the Illinois Institute of Technology, satellite campuses of state and Chicago schools like Roosevelt, Northern Illinois University and the University of Illinois, and an onslaught of adult-centered, business education programs from nearly school in the marketplace.
“This is a wealthy region—first based in agriculture and then in industry,” Keating said. “It had leaders with the foresight to build and support institutions of higher learning. If the Chicago region is to survive and flourish in the 21st century, it needs access to the very best education.”
College presidents agree.
“As you look around the many small liberal arts institutions established around 1900, there are very few of them left.” Said Dominican University president Donna Carroll “The ones that have survived have been extremely entrepreneurial. I suspect that you would discover that the most successful are run well from a business perspective.
Wheaton College
The roots of Wheaton College go back to the late 1840s, when Wesleyan Methodists established the Illinois Institute as a place for primary, secondary and pre-college education of their children. The school struggled financially through the economic panic of the 1850s, and began to look for other options, said college historian David Malone.
“They called upon Jonathon Blanchard, who was the president of Knox College, to help form the school,” said Malone. Blanchard was an abolitionist and known for his success at fund-raising. He agreed to come to II and the school was given reborn, standing on three founding principles: abolitionism, temperance, anti-secrecy. Unlike many other area colleges, these principles were not tied to any religion.
“Wheaton’s education focuses more on the theoretical, rather than an applied and practical curriculum. Wheaton’s program provides flexible, critical thinking skills, rather than a subset of skills,” Malone said.
But that was not always the case. In fact as early as 1863, a college catalog offered through the college’s “commercial school” courses in bookkeeping, penmanship, telegraphing, commercial calculations, and commercial law.
More legitimacy with the collegiate environment came under the direction of the Rev. James Buswell, as the school received accreditation, science programs began, and the North Dakota science center was established.
But perhaps the most significant changes occurred under the leadership of Raymond Edman.
“Edman was very interested in a more personal devotional life,” said Malone. “This was the time when there was an upsurge of students who went onto mission work. This was the era of Billy Graham, who graduated from Wheaton.”
This devotion to mission work was also a beginning of the school’s shift from evangelicalism to fundamentalism. Today, Wheaton College maintains its devotion to a broad-based liberal arts education in keeping with tightly-held Christian beliefs. Mission work and teaching are still widely chosen by students after graduation.
North Central College
North Central College was begun by German Evangelicals as Plainfield College. “It trained men and women from 1861—not just men as most colleges would have done,” said Keating. A major milestone was relocating to Naperville from Plainfield in 1870--to get greater access to the Chicago region.
“The school is closely tied to the growth and development of Naperville,” she said. “It has offered (and still offers) opportunities for Naperville residents to gain excellent education to prepare them to become leaders and innovators. This was clearly seen in the 1960s with the arrival of BP and Amoco and Fermi/Argonne in the region.
“North Central offered the hi-tech and liberal arts education needed for people employed there,” she said. “This continues today.”
Concordia University
In 1855, Lutheran ministers established a private “teachers' seminary” in Milwaukee to train day school teachers for Lutheran schools. In 1857, responsibility for the operation of the school was taken over by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, which moved the school several times, finally landing in Addison in 1864.
Originally known as Concordia Teachers’ College, in 1913 the college moved to its present campus in River Forest. By the late 1970s, the institution expanded its education-based program to become a full liberal arts institution and changed its name to Concordia College. After tremendous growth in its graduate programs, the school changed its name changed its name to Concordia University in 1990.
While education is still the school’s trademark, other programs, such as business, communications and theology have been well received. Many students plan on becoming professional church workers and the university actively promotes service learning within the greater community.
Elmhurst College
Founded in 1871, Elmhurst College was, like many, a pre-seminary school for boys affiliated with the German Evangelical Church, now United Church of Christ. Throughout the 1920s, German was the school’s primary language.
It was in 1917 that plans first emerged to make the school a four-year college. In 1919 it became a junior college and later, it became a four-year institution.
The most dramatic early changes came under the leadership of President Richard Niebuhr, an alumnus of the school who would, throughout his tenure, launch the school’s first honor, business and pre-professional programs.
The college opened its doors to women in 1930. In 1943, Elmhurst gained notoriety as it welcomed four American-born students of Japanese heritage to campus. Like many schools in that era, the GI Bill brought large numbers of veterans to campus, with veterans nearly 34 percent of the student body in the late 1940s.
In 1949, the college launched an innovative evening adult program. By 1966, as the country was experiencing social uprising and the college set up a lecture series that featured such speakers and Martin Luther King Jr., Edward Kennedy, Muhammad Ali and others.
The college established its Center for Business and Economics in 1975 and, by 1977, more than 200 students enrolled in a new Elmhurst Management Program, a fast-track degree program for adults. Commitment to adult education would continue throughout the tenure of current president Bryant Cureton.
In the last 15 years, Elmhurst has developed such programs as the Center for Professional Excellence, a host of graduate programs, and the Academic Partnership, which allows students to complete degrees at their place of work.
“We take pains to make the campus aware of its history,” said public relations director Charley Henderson. “It's not force fed, but presented all over the campus, in art, sculpture, timelines and more.”
Old Main, the first building to stand on campus in 1879 still stands today. “It is an active, online building, not an artifact,” Henderson
Benedictine University
Founded in Chicago in 1887 as St. Procopius College, Benedictine monks designed the school, then predominantly seminary and pre-seminary, to educate men of Czech and Slovak descent, and most students were of Czech ancestry in the early years. In 1901 the College moved to the more congenial atmosphere of Lisle. The first building, Benedictine Hall, was dedicated completed by 1921, and new buildings began to be added after 1926.
Historically a school focuses on the liberal arts, its science programs have gained a reputation for excellence as well.
The College became coeducational in 1968 and was renamed Illinois Benedictine College in 1971. In response to community needs, graduate, doctorate and adult learner programs were added. The College became Benedictine University in 1996 when it established its doctoral program in Organization Development
A comprehensive learning center with full media library and a modern and technically advanced science facility, filled with advanced laboratory space, digital classrooms and modern research equipment opened in fall 2001. They house state of the art computer labs, specialized science labs, a research center and the Jurica Nature Museum, which offers more than 10,000 specimens ranging from coral and sponges to a whale skeleton. The museum is noted for its outstanding bird collection as well as its natural habitat exhibits.
In recent years, the school has become widely known for its community and business events and lectures which have featured world leaders, philosophers, American heroes, and business icons. Additionally the University has set up such community programs as the Institute for Intergenerational Health, athletic camps and programs, meeting and event planning and integrated business programs.
Aurora University
Aurora University had its beginning as Mendota Seminary, founded in Mendota, Illinois, in 1893 as an institution to train ministers and lay workers in the Advent Christian Church. Almost immediately, however, the name was changed to Mendota College and the school took on the much broader mission of providing a full collegiate curriculum with a liberal arts base.
By 1911, the college had outgrown its facilities and sought a new location closer to Chicago. Citizens of Aurora donated land on what was then the rural edge of the city, and Charles Eckhart, founder of the Auburn Motorcar Company, provided a donation that covered the cost of erecting the first three buildings of Aurora College, and classes commenced in the spring of 1912.
In 1947, the College's evening program was instituted - one of the nation's first adult education programs at a liberal arts college. In 1971, Aurora College became legally independent of the Advent Christian Church.
One of the most significant changes was when Aurora University, which had been renamed in the 1980s, entered into an agreement with George Williams College, whereby the George Williams College of Aurora University was created to be the home of the School of Social Work, Recreation Administration, Physical Education, and Teacher Education programs. Through this merger, the university operates the 241-acre Lake Geneva Campus located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin.
Other George Williams’ programs were adopted at nearby Benedictine University, jumpstarting that school’s graduate programs.
Dominican University
The outskirts of Chicago were already a hotbed of religious-based higher education by the early 1900s. But most of the offerings were men’s colleges. The diocese was looking for a college to serve the women of the community, and posed an invitation to Wisconsin’s St. Clara College to move to the Chicago area. As a result, Rosary College, now Dominican University, was formed, splitting off from St. Clara and setting up shop here.
“It was supposed to be in the city. That was the plan,” said University president Donna Carroll. “But the Sisters felt strongly that they needed contemplative, reflective beauty and space to fulfill their mission.”
Nearby River Forest offered just that. “The sisters gave their butter and trolley money to support the original building of the campus,” said Carroll. It showed the strong commitment by the sisters to build the kind of campus they’d wished for.
“The sisters had been well educated themselves, so they had the same expectation for the quality and depth of liberal arts education that the monks were providing for men,” Carroll said. “What was different was the expectation that it would be equal.”
Also different was their approach, Carroll said, citing a stronger commitment to the fine arts and language than some of the men’s schools in the area.
“They offered a worldly perspective, with strong emphasis on community and relationships that was likely very different,” she said. The school was one of the first in the country introduce study abroad program in 1925, and began graduate education in 1949.
“Even the way the school was organized was very women-oriented. It was a grass roots, consensus driven management style.”
But that female outlook didn’t prohibit the school from going co-ed in 1970, earlier than many other private colleges in the area. It was a change not without its challenges.
“There are great hurdles for a women’s college to fully embrace a co-ed environment,” Carroll said. “But we had already introduced graduate education, so that made the school more appealing to men as well as women.”
In 1997, the college changed its name to Dominican University, a trend within the suburban Chicago marketplace. Like other area schools, the new name capstoned of a series of changes, and the university emerged with a larger portfolio of programs to attract a wider variety of students.
Today, the school is undergoing a large expansion of campus, including a Harlem Avenue graduate campus and new buildings at its main campus. The new structures reflect the original values of the Dominican sisters, embracing sustainability, gaining LEAD certification and keeping the surrounding environment a priority.
“What began as a respect for nature is now re-emerging as a commitment to sustainability, Carroll said.
Sherri Dauskurdas--Contributing Writer