Wilberforce University (WU) is a private university in Wilberforce, Ohio, United States. It is one of three historically black universities established before the American Civil War. Founded in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC), it is named after English statesman and abolitionist William Wilberforce. In 1863, it was sold to the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which had ties to the school since its inception. WU remains affiliated with the AME.

Beginning in 1887, WU operated as a partially state-funded and partially private institution. Concerns over the separation of church and state led WU's theology department to separate and establish the independent Payne Theological Seminary. The state-funded division of the school separated from WU in 1947 and became what is today known as Central State University.

The university currently offers twenty-five academic programs of undergraduate and graduate study. Since 1966, the school has emphasized cooperative education in which students do internships in their field of study in addition to their coursework. The school is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and its athletic teams, the Bulldogs, compete in the HBCU Athletic Conference.

History

19th century

Background

At the time Ohio became a state in 1802, it did so as a free state with the slave states of Kentucky and Virginia along its southern border. Ohio became a major thoroughfare for the Underground Railroad during the 19th century with an estimated 40,000 slaves escaping from the American South along Ohio routes. Additionally migratory patterns of free people of color in conjunction with the arrival of escaped slaves led to a significant growing black population across the state, but especially in Hamilton County, Ohio and those counties adjacent to it in Southwestern Ohio which had the largest and fastest growing black populations in Ohio in that era.

The need to educate the Ohio black community became a pressing issue of concern to community leaders, politicians, and religious groups. The Ohio Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) adopted education resolutions in 1833, and in the years following required their ministers to preach sermons on the need for education. The Ohio General Assembly formally mandated the establishment of public schools for Ohio's black population in 1854. Cincinnati High School opened that same year as the first public school for black students in Ohio. The Ohio Conference of the AME Church founded Union Seminary in West Jefferson, Ohio in 1847, but the school failed to thrive and closed in 1863.

In the years leading up to the American Civil War there was a growing movement to establish schools of higher learning for black people in the Northern United States as part of the abolitionist movement to end slavery. This was in stark contrast to the Southern United States where it was illegal for blacks to obtain an education.

The first of these schools were Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (founded 1837) and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (founded 1854). The interest in founding a similar school in Ohio was partly generated by a series of race riots in Southern Ohio that occurred in 1826, 1836, and 1841. The Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church believed that the establishment of a university for blacks in Southwestern Ohio could do much to solve racial problems in the region, and were also wanting to provide opportunities to improve the lives of the approximately 50,000 black methodists living in the area overseen by the Cincinnati Conference.

Founding

Wilberforce University was the third historically black college (HBC) founded in the United States, and the last HBC established prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Some sources describe Wilberforce University as the oldest or first HBC because it was the first HBC to graduate students with an accredited bachelor's degree in 1857; an achievement not reached by another HBC until 1868 when Lincoln University awarded its first bachelor's diplomas.

Wilberforce University (WU) was officially incorporated in accordance with the laws of Greene County, Ohio on August 30, 1856. It was earlier established by a ratification of first the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) on October 31, 1855 and later a vote of the MEC's national general assembly in May 22, 1856. The school was established as a coeducation school of higher education for African-American students with its original name stylized as Wilberforce University. a name adopted on May 22, 1856 that was permanently abandoned after the vote in August 1856. The MEC purchased 52 acres of land for $15,000 in what was then known as Tawawa Springs for the purposes of establishing the college. The former resort's hotel,

Pre-Civil War years: 1856-1860

Wilberforce University's first board was deliberately selected to represent more Christian faith backgrounds than just the MEC, with board members making up representation from a variety of Christian denominations. One of the school's original board members was abolitionist Salmon P. Chase who was then the 23rd governor of Ohio and later became Chief Justice of the United States.

On September 16, 1856 the Reverend F. Merrick was elected president of Wilberforce University by the WU's board. Merrick, however, turned the position down, and the board was forced to look elsewhere. M. P. Gaddis Jr. served as principal of the school during its first year, and the school opened in October 1856 with a dedication ceremony presided over by Edward Thompson, then president of Ohio Wesleyan University. In February 1857 it was announced that Rev. John F. Wright was appointed the first president of Wilberforce University. The new school faced pushback from the white community in Xenia with several Ohio newspapers running an identical article in 1858 which complained about the way life in Xenia had altered dramatically due to the influx of so many black individuals into what had been a predominantly white community. A formal petition was sent to the MEC Cincinnati Conference in 1858 requesting that the school be moved. This petition was crafted by the members of the MEC who lived in Xenia.

In its early years, WU had two programs of study, one was a college preparatory program which provided a high school education, and the other was a collegiate level education whose primary purpose was to train teachers. The student population of WU consisted of two types of students. One type, were students who were born to free people of color who hailed mainly from the free states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California. The other were multiracial children from the American South who were born on plantations to enslaved black women and were fathered by white slave holders. These white men wanted their enslaved mixed-race children to receive an education, and sent their children north to WU to obtain one.

WU's faculty was predominantly white when it opened, and that continued to be the case until the late 1870s when a shift towards a predominantly black faculty occurred. It did however, embrace both men and women on the faculty since its inception with Gaddis and his wife splitting the teaching work load between them in the school's first year. They were succeeded by Mary J. Allen, and James K. Parker and his wife Maggie Baker. Most of the teaching staff in the early years of WU were graduates of Oberlin College or other northern schools which supported abolition. In 1859 Sarah Jane Woodson began to teach at Wilberforce. She was the first black American to teach at a historically black college or university (HBCU). She was a 1856 graduate of Oberlin College. She was the youngest sister of one of the original trustees, Lewis Woodson. After leaving the staff at the time of the school's temporary closure in 1862, she returned to Wilberforce in 1866 in a position of greater responsibility.

American Civil War: 1861-1865

thumb|Daniel Alexander Payne in the early 1890s

The outbreak of the American Civil War threatened the college's finances. The school depended on the financial support of the Southern planters whose children attended the school. Other patrons during this period included Union Army general Oliver Otis Howard, United States Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, and Reverend Theron Baldwin.

WU received its largest contribution at that point in the school's history as the result of an 1869-1870 campaign led by the Ohio General Assembly and Ohio's representatives to the United States Congress. Through this campaign the school was awarded a $28,000 grant from the Freedmen's Bureau for the purposes of educating teachers at WU. The funds raised through this grant and donations from patrons were enough to cover operational costs and build a new brick structure, Shorter Hall (completed 1878), to serve as the school's main building, but Payne was unsuccessful at obtaining additional funds to build an endowment as he had hoped.

The Reconstruction era history at WU also was marked by a period of academic improvements. The curriculum was systemized during this period, and courses in music, theology, and law were added to the prior coursework in the classics. Additionally, science offerings at the school were greatly expanded; including the addition of medical science instruction in 1867. Improvements were made to the courses preparing teachers for the classroom. Both theology and classics departments were established at the school in 1866. This was followed by a science department in 1867, and the establishment of a Normal school in 1872. With the establishment of this latter school, WU began to graduate black teachers who could work in public schools serving black children in the 1870s. The school's faculty remained largely white during the Reconstruction Era, and these teachers are credited with establishing a strong foundation in the school's newly created departments.

In 1876 Payne resigned from his post as president of WU. He was succeeded by Benjamin F. Lee who had previously graduated from Wilberforce in 1872, and then worked at Wilberforce as a professor of theology in addition to being employed as an AME church minister in Toledo. Payne continued to be a supporter of WU after he resigned; notably playing an instrumental role in establishing a small museum on the campus of WU in the 1880s.

Gilded Age: 1878-1890s

Financial instability continued to be an issue at WU during the Gilded Age. President Lee lacked both Payne's charisma and his social clout in wider American society within both black and white communities. As a result, he was an ineffective advocate and fund raiser for WU both within the AME Church and outside of it. While he implemented many fundraising plans, and made many appeals, he was not successful at raising money. As a result the staff made many financial sacrifices during his tenure, and they were owed backpay. However, Lee was successful at making several improvement's to the schools facilities during his tenure; including the outfitting of the Ware Art Room and the furnishing of the school's music rooms. The latter project was paid for by donations made by the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia.

One of Lee's fundraising initiatives was the establishment of a touring school choir known as the Wilberforce Concert Company in 1881. Fisk University, another historically black university, founded the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871 which had proven to be a successful fund raising tool for that university. The success of this choir led to the formation of touring choirs at other historically black schools, many of which successfully raised enough funds to keep these schools operating, including the Hampton Singers at Hampton University. Lee's Wilberforce Concert Company failed to bring in much financial support but gained a reputation for musicianship and drew students from a wider geographic area to Wilberforce, leading to diversification of the student body. The choir toured until it was disbanded in 1887.

Lee's tenure was also marked by a period of faculty instability. The strict moral code of ethics placed on teachers, low play, and the heavy work load demands placed on the faculty were some factors contributing to teacher turnover. In an interview, Mary Church Terrell, who taught at WU in the 1880s, said that the work load was overwhelming. She was simultaneously responsible for teaching courses in French, English, mineralogy, and music. On top of this she conducted the school's choir and played organ for the school's chapel services. Additionally, president Lee had many personal conflicts with his teaching staff which led to several staff members resigning in protest. One of these was Mrs. S. C. Bierce who was the head of the normal school department at WU. Bierce was the wife of the prominent classics scholar William Sanders Scarborough whom Lee had successfully wooed to WU and was one the school's most prominent academics. Despite pleas from the school board to find a way to convince Bierce to return, she refused and did not return to WU until after the end of Lee's tenure as president.

In 1884 Lee left WU to become the editor of The Christian Recorder. Samuel T. Mitchell, an 1873 graduate of Wilberforce, replaced Lee as WU's president; a role he remained in through 1900. Like his predecessor, Mitchell's presidency was marked by a period of repeating financial crises which was exacerbated in his tenure by the deaths of aging past donors. Additionally, both government and charitable funds that were available to the school during the Reconstruction Era had either disappeared completely or significantly diminished. Unlike his predecessor, Mitchell was a far better communicator and charismatic public speaker, and was more successful in building relationships with new donors.

Mitchell was a visionary who recognized the need to secure state funding for Wilberforce in order to end the cycle of repeating financial crises. Politically savvy, he was aware that Wilberforce would need an advocate in the Ohio General Assembly (OGA) in order to make that goal a reality. He therefore became heavily involved in the successful campaign to elect Benjamin W. Arnett to the OGA. Additionally, Mitchell led a campaign mounted from within Wilberforce that included faculty members and other administrators to advocate for a state-financed department at WU. This campaign successfully lobbied white politicians from both the Democrat and Republican parties.

Arnett became a powerful figure in Republican Party politics in Ohio, and he was responsible for shepherding a bill through the Ohio legislature in 1886-1887 that would provide state funding for a department at WU. On March 19, 1887 the "Combined Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce University" (CNI) was created with bipartisan support by the passage of a law by the Ohio General Assembly. In accordance with political needs of the era, this new department emphasized both teacher training and industrial education in addition to classical education.

The college became a center of black cultural and intellectual life in southwestern Ohio. Xenia and nearby towns developed a professional black elite. In summary, the OIG found that the university did not comply with Title IV, HEA requirements because of administrative problems, including staff turnover, insufficient financial aid staff, failure to have written procedures, and lack of communication with other offices. The university worked with auditors to set up appropriate staff and procedures.

In 2021, the university announced it was cutting tuition by 15% for Ohio residents.

Presidents

Academics

According to US News and World Report, Wilberforce had a 29% four-year graduation rate in 2024.

Wilberforce requires most students to participate in cooperative education. The cooperative program places students in internships that provide practical work experience in addition to academic training. It has been a part of the curriculum at Wilberforce since 1966.

Athletics

The Wilberforce athletic teams are called the Bulldogs. The university is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing as a member of the HBCU Athletic Conference since the 2024-2025 academic year. They previously competed as an NAIA Independent within the Continental Athletic Conference during the 2023–24 academic year; which they were a member on a previous stint from 2012–13 to 2021–22. The Bulldogs competed in the Mid-South Conference (MSC) during the 2022–23 school year, and in the defunct American Mideast Conference from 1999–2000 to 2011–12.

Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf and track & field (indoor and outdoor); while women's sports include basketball, cross country, gymnastics, golf, volleyball, and track & field (indoor and outdoor).

Intramurals

Students also participate in the following intramural sports: basketball, softball, volleyball, flag football, and tennis.

Notable alumni

See also

  • Historically black colleges and universities
  • 1931 Wilberforce Green Wave football team

Representation in other media

  • Dolen Perkins-Valdez's novel Wench (2010) explores the lives of several enslaved women of color brought to the Tawawa House resort during the summers by their Southern white masters. They were among the visitors in the years before the property was bought for use as the college.

References

Bibliography

  • Official website
  • Official athletics website
  • Horace Talbert, The Sons of Allen: Together with a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio, 1906, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina