Broadening the Mind on a 28,000-Acre Campus

This is the home of the largest campus in the United States, 28,000-acre Berry College.

Twice the size of Manhattan, the school has irregular-shaped boundaries running 15 miles in one direction, 12 in the other. Those who tour the campus are given a tape to play on the 16-mile route. Some have driven its back roads for two days and never touched the same road twice.

The entire Berry campus, dotted with lakes, is a wildlife sanctuary with more than 4,000 deer, hundreds of wild turkeys, fox, swans and a wealth of other birds and animals. Much of the campus is a forest preserve.

“This is Georgia’s best-kept secret,” said Gloria M. Shatto, 57, the school’s president for the past eight years. Located on the outskirts of Rome in the northwest corner of Georgia, Berry is a liberal arts school that’s big in size and small in enrollment--1,810 students. Yet scholastically it consistently ranks among the top small liberal arts colleges in the nation. In a recent evaluation by U.S. News & World Report, for example, Berry placed fifth.

The average Scholastic Aptitude Test score for entering freshmen this year was 1,049--145 points above the national average, 201 points above the Georgia average.

Berry is also one of about a dozen work colleges in the country. Along with diplomas, 90% of the graduates receive Certificates of Work, noting they worked at least 10 hours a week, usually at a variety of jobs.

“Work has always been an integral part of the educational process at Berry,” explained John Heneisen, 45, Berry’s dean of work. “We encourage, but do not force students to work on campus in addition to their studies.”

The college pays $3 million a year in wages to students who work at 120 job classifications. Some are are groundskeepers, carpenters, mechanics, electricians, painters, foresters. Others run a cable-TV company, a dairy with 200 cows, care for 750 head of beef, or work as research assistants, secretaries, switchboard operators.

Still others hand-craft clothing sold in a school gift shop, make and repair furniture for campus buildings, run school cafeterias and residence halls.

“Our young men and women come from affluent families, from welfare families and everything in between,” Heneisen said. “Berry is a great leveler. Learning the value of work is for everyone.”

Berry College traces its beginning to a Sunday afternoon in 1900. It was spring and 34-year-old Martha Berry, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, sat alone reading in a log cabin near her Possum Trot home. Looking up from her book, she saw three mountain boys peering at her through a window.

“Where do you live? What are your names?” she asked, as she invited them into her cabin.

Like nearly all of the children in the area, they could neither read nor write. At the time, there were no schools in this part of Georgia. Noting their curiosity, Martha Berry read to them that afternoon.

The following Sunday the boys were back, their sisters and brothers in tow. On subsequent Sundays, they showed up with their mother and father and soon with neighboring families. All wanted to be read to by the woman they called “The Sunday Lady of Possum Trot.”

Berry opened a boarding school for boys in 1902, combining education with vocational training. The boys worked the plantation to earn their keep and education. Seven years later she started a girls’ school.

In time, the Berry schools became elementary and high schools, a junior college in 1926, a four-year college in 1930. Berry’s goal was to instill her students with a belief in the importance of work, their studies and faith in God. Eventually she donated to the college the plantation and Oak Hill, her Greek revival antebellum mansion built in 1847.

Through the 1940s, the schools were self-sufficient. Students grew crops, raised poultry, cared for beef and dairy herds, and ran a cannery. They grew cotton and made their own clothing on looms. They harvested trees to construct and heat buildings. They built dams and reservoirs and erected a giant wheel and grist mill to grind corn and grain.

In the 1930s, high school and college students fired their own bricks and built several Georgian-style buildings, including a three-story science hall, gymnasium, residence halls, industrial shops, a large dairy complex and a 1,000-seat Christopher Wren-style church.

Hearing about Berry’s remarkable school, Theodore Roosevelt came to visit. Andrew Carnegie was so impressed he started the Berry Endowment with a $50,000 gift. Other industrialists added to the fund.

Henry Ford became the largest benefactor. He and his wife, Clara, first visited the school in 1923. Though Ford disliked most institutions of higher learning and the things they taught, he liked Berry’s emphasis on work and practical learning.

“I felt Martha Berry could make better use of some of my money than I could myself,” said Ford, who gave nearly $5 million for campus improvements.

Employing stone masons from Italy, he constructed a complex of Gothic buildings patterned after England’s Oxford University, including residence and dining halls, classrooms, offices, auditorium and gymnasium. He also purchased additional land, built a large mountain reservoir, and gave the school a fleet of tractors.

When Martha Berry died on Feb. 27, 1942, Ford was one of many notables at her funeral. She is buried on campus.

The high school and elementary schools were discontinued a number of years ago, except for the Berry College Laboratory School, a teachers’ demonstration school for 110 kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Today, Berry College consists of the original log cabin campus, the main campus, the Ford quadrangle and the mountain campus.

The mountain campus, formerly the high school, provides housing for 110 students on full, four-year scholarships sponsored by Truett Cathy’s Chick-fil A, a chain of fast-food outlets in 35 states.

“The land is our endowment in addition to our $60-million endowment fund,” President Shatto said. The school receives an income from regular timber harvest on campus, from a 200-acre rock quarry and from a large clay mine used for ceramic tile. Currently under development on campus is an 800-acre industrial park.

In the last eight years, enrollment has increased from 1,200 to 1,810, the faculty from 50% to 80%. Tuition is $5,400 a year for those who live on campus (80% of the student body). Tuition, room and board is $8,190 a year.