QuasquicenTRIVIA Answers

November 11, 2019

If you want to play along, click here to play Goshen College Quasquicentrivia:

Did you have fun playing our 125th anniversary trivia game in the Bulletin? Here are the answers, with more details below.

1910: Bachelor’s degree first conferred by GC. Not until 1910 was GC in a position to offer a full 4-year bachelor’s degree. Earlier students had completed certification in various disciplines but had not been able to earn a B.A.
1971: Black Student Union founded. African American students on campus launched the Black Student Union in 1971 to support Black identity and increase understanding of Black-white and Black-Black relationships on campus. The BSU grew out of informal meeting students had begun weekly in Spring 1968 to strengthen mutual support which had led in 1969 to forming a GC Afro-American Society.
1980: China becomes SST location. In Fall 1980, Atlee (’35) &Winifred (’38) Beechy led the first group of 20 GC students to Chengdu. In 2008 the Chinese SST unit moved to Nanchong with the most recent group having gone in 2017.
1905: College board comes under Mennonite denominational control. Elkhart Institute had started as a private venture that grew under the leadership of a private stockholder association. In 1905, the stockholder Board of Trustees agreed to transfer all assets of what had become Goshen College to the control of a newly-established Mennonite Board of Education.
1923-24: College closes for one year. Financial pressures and tensions with some Mennonite leaders over doctrinal/educational matters led to a decision to close the college after the 1922/23 school year. The college reopened in fall 1924 adding energetic and gifted faculty that shaped the institution for decades to come.
1903: College moves to Goshen. With no room for expansion in Elkhart, school leaders accepted the offer of civic leaders in Goshen to move to our current campus. Although falling somewhat short of their $10,000 goal, the Goshen business community contributed significantly to making the college’s new location possible.
2002: Core Values statement adopted. In October 2002 GC’s Board of Directors adopted five core value statements representing GC. For a bonus point, name all five.
1934: Elementary education training accredited by Indiana. Training teachers was part of GC’s curriculum from the beginning. The state had accredited GC’s high school teacher training in 1926. Shifting standards for elementary education training meant that GC did not achieve that mark until 1934.
1894: Elkhart Institute founded. See “Lasting Ties” column in this issue.
1917: Enroll first international students (other than Canada). In the summer of 1917, Modesto Guidi (Cuba) and Enriquilla Mota (Dominican Republic) were enrolled at GC and both were enrolled the following summer as was one other Cuban in 1918 and another in 1919. Ontario had been a source of financial support and students for Elkhart Institute from its beginning. Children of North American missionaries raised in India or Argentina also attended GC beginning as early as 1916. Not until 1946/47 was there continuing enrollment of international students.
1965-66: Enrollment (full-time) tops 1000 for first time. In Fall 1965 GC enrolled 1,041 full-time undergraduates. Total full & part-time undergraduate enrollment first exceeded 1000 in 1959/60 (1034).
1946-47: Enrollment (full-time) tops 500 for first time. In 1945/46 full-time enrollment had been only 321 (222 women/99 men). With the end of WWII and return of many males from draft-related service, 1946/47 enrollment jumped to 556 (257 women/299 men).
1999: Environmental science major launched. GC approved offering an environmental science major in Feb. 1999 and started doing so that fall. At the same time, GC’s began offering a peace, justice and conflict studies major. (Since 1978 GC had offered peace studies first as “co-major” and then minor.)
1894: First student who was not a Mennonite enrolls. Elkhart Institute/Goshen College enrolled students who were not Mennonite in our first academic term (and every term since).
1941: Full NCA accreditation of college program. President Ernest E. Miller received the good word from the North Central Association in Chicago on March 27, 1941. On his return to town that evening, exuberant students greeted Miller with an impromptu hero’s welcome.
1997: GC installs first female president. Shirley H. Showalter assumed the office of GC president on Jan. 1, 1997. She was inaugurated April 5, 1997.
1921-22: Gymnasium built in separate athletic facility. In Fall 1921, students held work days and solicited contributions from Goshen residents to construct a frame gymnasium where Schrock Science Annex now stands. Students also provided much of the labor to erect the structure that was finally completed on Jan. 20, 1922. Though it lacked dressing rooms, lockers, furnace and seating for spectators, it was still a vast improvement over the previous gymnasium located in the basement of Ad Building. It served as GC’s only gym until the Union Building was built (1949). The Gingerich Recreation-Fitness Center was built in 1993.
2013-14: Hispanic students first exceed 10% of GC enrollment. In fall 2019 Hispanic students make up over 25% of undergraduate student enrollment.
2012: iPad initiative launched. Beginning in Fall 2012, all incoming first-year students received an iPad as basic equipment for their studies at GC.
1958: Maple Leafs becomes official name of athletic teams. GC began participating in intercollegiate athletic events in 1956. In January 1958, the Record announced that Marian Smith [Yoder] ‘’60 had submitted “Maple Leafs,” the winning entry in a contest to name GC teams. “Maple Leaf” was the title of GC yearbooks 1915-2014 (when publication ceased).
1971: Men’s soccer national tournament GC first visit. At the end of November 1971, the Men’s soccer team travelled to Dunn, NC for their first appearance in a NAIA national tournament. They also qualified in 1973, 1977, & 2006.
1980: Merry Lea donated to GC. On July 24, Lee and Mary Jane Rieth announced the transfer of 860 acres and foundation assets for the Merry Lea Enivronmental Center (Wolf Lake, Ind.) to GC.
1950: Nursing program started. The first GC nursing class (8 students) began studies Aug. 14, 1950, graduating the first RN/BSN class in 1953. GC had been working actively since 1945 to start the school.
1986: On-campus dances permitted for first time. Campus policy prohibiting on-campus dancing was lifted provisionally in October 1986 (made permanent June 1987). A Halloween masked ball in the Union was the first officially-sanctioned on-campus dance. Campus groups had been sponsoring dances at off-campus locations for several years before this.
2009: Prairie grass reintroduced to GC’s section of Potawatomi land: In fall 2009 GC students working with Ryan Sensenig (Biology) and Glenn Gilbert (Phys Plant) reintroduced native grasses to an area south of Newcomer, following through on a proposal developed by students several years earlier.
1934: Shirt factory in Coffman basement helps students earn tuition. The Maple City Shirt Company started production Sept. 15, 1934 and continued until 1936/37. Over 12,000 work shirts were produced in the first year. Joseph E. Brunk (’20) procured the equipment and managed the operation
1968: SST begins. The first official SST units left Goshen Sept. 12, 1968 for Costa Rica (led by Dan & Joy (’71) Hess), Guadalupe (led by Art (’45) & Oma (’47) Smucker), and Jamaica (led by S.A. & Ethel “30) Yoder). Other units later in the 1968/69 school year went to Honduras (H. Clair (’33) & Florence (’35) Amstutz), Nicaragua (Marion (‘58) & Fran Wenger), and Haiti (Arlin & Naomi (’55) Hunsberger) In the summer of 1967 there were experimental units in Haiti (led by Wengers) and Barbados (led by Roy (’35) & Fern (’35) Umble).
1958: WGCS first broadcast. WGCS (91.1, The Globe) first aired Oct. 2, 1958. GC had engaged in a variety of other radio operations beginning in the 1940s

Compiled by Joe Springer ’80