Student Union
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|
Former names
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Ashmun Institute |
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Motto | "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." |
Type |
State-related HBCU |
Established | April 29, 1854 |
Endowment | $35.5 million |
Interim President | Richard Green, PhD |
Students | 1,902 students (2015); |
Location |
Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States 39°48′30″N 75°55′40″W / 39.80833°N 75.92778°WCoordinates: 39°48′30″N 75°55′40″W / 39.80833°N 75.92778°W |
Campus | Rural 422 acres (1.7 km2) |
Colors | Orange and Blue |
Athletics | NCAA Division II – CIAA, ECAC |
Mascot | Lions |
Affiliations | TMSF |
Website | www.lincoln.edu |
Designated | January 25, 1967 |
John Miller Dickey | 1854–1856 |
John Pym Carter | 1856–1861 |
John Wynne Martin | 1861–1865 |
Isaac Norton Rendall | 1865–1906 |
John Ballard Rendall | 1906–1924 |
Walter Livingston Wright* | 1924–1926 |
William Hallock Johnson | 1926–1936 |
Walter Livingston Wright | 1936–1945 |
Horace Mann Bond | 1945–1957 |
Armstead Otey Grubb* | 1957–1960 |
Donald Charles Yelton* | 1960–1961 |
Marvin Wachman | 1961–1969 |
Bernard Warren Harleston* | 1970-1970 |
Herman Russell Branson | 1970–1985 |
Donald Leopold Mullett* | 1985–1987 |
Niara Sudarkasa | 1987–1998 |
James Donaldson* | 1998–1999 |
Ivory V. Nelson | 1999–2011 |
Robert R. Jennings | 2011–2014 |
Valerie Harrison* | 2014–2015 |
Richard Green** | 2015–
* Acting president ** Interim president |
Lincoln University (LU) is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. Founded as a private university in 1854, it has been a public institution since 1972. Its main campus is located on 422 acres near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university has two satellite locations, in University City, Philadelphia and Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Lincoln University provides undergraduate and graduate coursework to approximately 2,000 students. The University is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
In his book, Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, former LU president Dr. Horace Mann Bond noted that "This was the first institution founded anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for youth of African descent." While a majority of Lincoln University students are African Americans, the university has a long history of accepting students of other races and nationalities. Women have been permitted to receive degrees since 1953, and made up 60% of undergraduate enrollment in 2015.
In 1854 Rev. John Miller Dickey, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson, a Quaker, founded Ashmun Institute, later named Lincoln University. They named it after Jehudi Ashmun, a religious leader and social reformer. They founded the school for the education of African Americans, who had few opportunities for higher education.
John Miller Dickey was the first president of the college. He encouraged some of his first students: James Ralston Amos (1826–1864), his brother Thomas Henry Amos (1825–1869), and Armistead Hutchinson Miller (1829/30-1865), to support the establishment of Liberia as a colony for African Americans. (This was a project of the American Colonization Society.) Each of the men became ordained ministers.