Earlham College | Fast Facts

The key to educational excellence lies not in the memorization of vast amounts of information, but rather in fostering habits of mind that enable students to continue their learning, engage new questions, and reach informed judgments.

— "College Learning for the New Global Century," The National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America's Promise, Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2007.

President:
Douglas C. Bennett

Provost:
Nelson Bingham

Academic Dean:
Gregory Mahler

Earlham offers the Bachelor of Arts degree in 40 disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, as well as self-designed studies and a cooperative program in engineering. The College’s Graduate Programs in Education Department makes Master of Arts in Teaching and Master of Education degrees available.

Earlham graduates are well prepared for further study; nearly half of Earlham alumni graduating in the last 10 years enrolled in graduate or professional school. In fact, the College ranks 23rd among 1,469 institutions of higher learning in the U.S. in the percentage of graduates who go on to receive Ph.D.s. In addition, Earlham is among the nation's top colleges in the production of Fulbright Scholars.

Long considered one of the nation’s finest teaching libraries, Earlham‘s Lilly and Wildman Science libraries have received the Excellence in Academic Libraries Award from the Association of College and Research Libraries. In total, Earlham students and faculty have ready access to some 3.5 million volumes. Locally, Earlham houses more than 400,000 volumes and currently subscribes to some 700 print periodicals and newspapers, as well as maps, music and works of art. Another 20,000 periodicals are available online. Special holdings include the Herbert Hoover Peace Studies Collection and the Quaker Collection. Earlham is a Government Printing Office selective depository for government documents.

With more than 50 years of offering international study programs, Earlham ranks second among the nation's baccalaureate colleges in the proportion of students who study abroad at some time during their four-year undergraduate careers. (Institute of International Education, 2007) Sixty-four percent of Earlham students take part in off-campus study in more than 20 countries and throughout the United States. Faculty members are active in international education as well, leading and participating in off-campus programs alongside their students.

For the 2008-09 academic year, Earlham enrolled the second highest number of Davis/United World Colleges Scholars of any school in the country. The Davis/UWC program, which provides scholarships to exceptional students with great financial need, is the largest international scholarship program in the world.

The College's commitment to global education recently was recognized when Earlham was awarded the prestigious Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization from NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Constantly innovating, Earlham recently began new programs in South Asia; a May Term in Australia, exploring the Art, Culture and Ecology of Aboriginal Australians; and Environmental Studies Semester in New Zealand.

To prepare students to be global citizens who are concerned with improving our world, Earlham has long emphasized volunteer service. The humanitarian efforts of many Earlham students, faculty and staff locally, regionally, and beyond, including attention in the Gulf Region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have earned the College a place on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll in each of the past three years.

Each year Earlham's students collectively contribute nearly 30,000 reported hours (and many more unreported hours) of community service to support important local city and county needs. Faculty and staff also are active as volunteers, giving more than 13,000 hours annually to civic organizations, nonprofit agencies and local government. The College is among 27 colleges hosting a Bonner Scholars Program that awards 15 first-year students with four-year scholarships for continued participation in community outreach; 60 Bonner Scholars are active during the current year.

Through updated computing and network resources, students have high-speed access to e-mail and the Internet. Seven computing labs provide 92 PCs and 43 Macs for student use. Two of the these labs, located in Lilly Library, are open 24 hours providing a total of 16 PCs and 13 Macs, two printers and a scanner.

There also are seven other discipline-specific labs throughout the campus providing an additional 62 computers. In addition, undergraduates with their own units, who represent 94 percent of the student body, can connect to the campus network from ports in their residence hall rooms or via the wireless network from one of 101 access points around campus. Students can check out laptops from Lilly Library for use within the building for up to three hours, or from the Instructional Technology and Media Center for use around campus for up to three days.

Earlham also is active in educational assessment, collecting and evaluating data about students' intellectual and personal growth. Earlham President Doug Bennett has been instrumental in encouraging colleges to share information about student learning outcomes more freely. Earlham has been an active participant in such efforts as the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Collegiate Learning Assessment. The College has long been committed to applying evaluative knowledge to improve our teaching methods and educational outcomes. A leader in educational assessment, the College shares a great deal of statistical information with the public at Fact Book 2008 — Earlham By the Numbers.