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A T the end of Francis Hutchins’s administration in 1967, Berea College had endured World War II, pushed through curricular and administrative reorganizations, and reclaimed the historic ideal of integrated education. Conscious of his father’s discomforting experience with a former president lurking in the background, Francis Hutchins left Berea only a month after his successor took office. The new president was Willis D. Weatherford Jr., the son of the powerful and distinguished college trustee W. D. Weatherford Sr. The new president saw Berea’s legacy as one of social concern and racial equality, inaugurated by Fee and supported by J. A. R. Rogers and Henry Fairchild. Weatherford credited Fairchild with recognizing Appalachia as an area of need, and both William and Eleanor Frost for continuing this focus. Weatherford regarded the administrations of William J. and Francis Hutchins as an amazing era. The College Department under the Hutchinses’ leadership became the primary educational effort, with a liberal arts outlook and the support of a stable endowment. The collective legacy of the founders and other leaders of Berea was, in Weatherford’s view, quality education for Appalachian youth, interracial education, the dignity of labor, and the moral and spiritual growth of youth for Christian service.1 Weatherford’s vision for Berea was reflected in an education adapted to the needs of a changing region. The general education program of Berea College would move from a distribution model to a series of required interdisciplinary courses reflecting the institution’s historic commitments. This education, Weatherford reasoned, would build leadership in advancing Berea’s 161 A College of History and Destiny Willis D. Weatherford Jr., 1967–1984 I have heard some say, “Let’s join the mainstream of American higher education.” If this means dropping our commitment to a region and its special problems, dropping our service to students in special need and dropping our emphasis on moral and spiritual growth of students, then let us stay out of the mainstream. But if joining the mainstream implies adapting our educational means to better achieve our special purposes in the midst of changing conditions, then let’s swim in the middle of the swiftest current. willis d. weatherford jr., Inaugural Address causes of interracial education and service to Appalachia. These twin commitments experienced some strain as the population of African American students on campus reached critical mass, holding the college accountable to its founding principles. Amid the frustrations and progress of Weatherford’s administration, the college’s mission was codified into a statement called the Great Commitments . This statement summarized Berea’s historic mission as a guide for responding to the troubling present and for devising plans for the future. For Weatherford personally, moral development and spiritual growth were key components of education, leadership, and service. “Berea has traditionally done this, I hope we can continue to do so effectively ,” he observed. “In doing this, we must respect freedom of thought and expression, abhor paternalism, but be unashamed to stand for the cause of Christ.”2 Scholarly Abilities and Human Qualities Born at Biltmore, in the mountains of western North Carolina, on June 24, 1916, Willis D. Weatherford Jr. was raised in an environment of faithful devotion and service to others. His mother, Julia McRory, had served as YWCA secretary at Winthrop College, in South Carolina, before her marriage to Willis Weatherford Sr. His father had been international YMCA student secretary for seventeen years and led the building of the YMCA conference center at Blue Ridge Assembly in North Carolina. The elder Weatherford was a powerful advocate for improving race relations in the South long before the Civil Rights movement.3 He served Berea as a trustee for nearly five decades, winning a great reputation as a friend of Appalachian education and as an effective fund-raiser. His ideas for helping others were always large. “A project of only fifty thousand dollars invested in it can go out of existence any time and be forgotten overnight,” Weatherford once observed. “No wonder people don’t want to put their money into something like that. If an undertaking is worth ten times that amount, it will be permanent. And people will be glad to take part in it.”4 Willis Weatherford Jr. earned his B.A. at Vanderbilt in 1937, and then he achieved his B.D. from Yale in 1940. At Harvard, Weatherford earned his M.A. in 1943 and his Ph.D. in Economics in 1952. He was a teaching...

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