Davidson College

Davidson College

Motto	Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas (Latin)
Motto in English	Let Learning Be Cherished Where Liberty Has Arisen
Type	Private liberal arts college
Established	1837
Affiliation	Loosely affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Endowment	$661.9 million (2016)
President	Carol Quillen
Academic staff	170
Administrative staff	563 (full-time) Fall 2011
Undergraduates	1,950 On campus
Location	Davidson, North Carolina, U.S.
Campus	Suburban, 665-acre (2.69 km2) main campus and a 110-acre (0.45 km2) Lake Campus
Colors	Black and Red
Athletics	NCAA Division I – A-10, Pioneer Football League
Nickname	Wildcats
Mascot	Will E. Wildcat (Bronze sculpture; named for William Lee Davidson, the College's namesake).
Affiliations	APCU NAICU ACS Annapolis Group Oberlin Group CLAC 568 Group
Website	www.davidson.edu

Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina with a historic 665-acre main campus and a 110-acre lake campus on Lake Norman. The college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars.

Davidson annually enrolls about 1950 students from 47 states and 40 countries. Of those students, nearly 80 percent study abroad and about 25 percent participate in 21 NCAA Division I sports.

Students may choose from 26 majors and 17 interdisciplinary minors, as well as other interdisciplinary studies. The college is governed by an honor code and the majority of students, about 93 percent, live on campus for all four years.

Davidson is the first liberal arts college to eliminate loans in financial aid packages. It admits domestic students on a need-blind basis and meets 100 percent of all students’ calculated need through grants and work-study funds.

An institution of higher learning of The Presbyterian Church USA, Davidson College was founded in 1837 by The Concord Presbytery after purchasing 469 acres (1.90 km²) of land from the family of a Revolutionary War commander, Brigadier General William Lee Davidson, for whom the college is named. Church records show a meeting on May 13, 1835, among subsequent meetings, by members of the Concord Presbytery making plans to purchase and perform initial construction on the land, with land payments starting Jan. 1 of the following year. The first students graduated from Davidson in 1840 and received diplomas with the newly created college seal designed by Peter Stuart Ney, who is believed by some to be Napoleon's Marshal Ney.

In the 1850s, Davidson overcame financial difficulty by instituting "The Scholarship Plan," a program that allowed Davidson hopefuls to purchase a scholarship for $100, which could be redeemed in exchange for full tuition to Davidson until the 1870s. The college's financial situation improved dramatically in 1856 with a $250,000 donation by Maxwell Chambers, making Davidson the wealthiest college south of Princeton. The Chambers Building was erected to commemorate this gift. On November 28, 1921, the Chambers Building was destroyed in a fire but was reconstructed eight years later with funds provided by a generous gift from the Rockefeller family. The Chambers Building continues to be the primary academic building on campus.