Bacone College

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Bacone College
Bacone college logo.png
MottoA Place of Value & Opportunity
Type
Established1880
Religious affiliation
American Baptist Churches USA (former)
PresidentFerlin Clark
Students270
Location
Muskogee
,
Oklahoma
,
United States
CampusSuburban
ColorsRed and White
   
AthleticsNAIA – Independent
NicknameWarriors
Websitewww.bacone.edu
Bacone College logo.png

Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It was struggling financially in 2018. Several tribal nations agreed that year to a consortium and chartered it as a tribal college. This action secured federal funding under the government's treaty obligations to support Native American education.

Bacone College is a member of the Higher Learning Commission, the Oklahoma Independent College Foundation and Universities, the Joint Review Commission for Radiography Education, the National League for Nursing, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, and an affiliate member of the Oklahoma Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Its current president is Dr. Ferlin Clark (), a graduate of the University of Arizona.

History[]

Rockefeller Hall, ca. 1910

Some accounts credit Almon C. Bacone, a missionary teacher in Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, with asking the American Baptist Home Mission Society for support to start a school in the Cherokee Baptist Mission at their capital, Tahlequah in 1867. Bacone had previously taught at the Cherokee Male Seminary established in Indian Territory.[1]

According to historian , Bacone College can be traced to a Baptist mission school at in western North Carolina, which was part of Cherokee homelands. Evan Jones, one of the earliest missionaries to the Cherokee, led the school. After most of the Cherokee were removed to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, the Valley Town school moved to a site near what developed as present-day Westville, Oklahoma.

In 1867, Evan Jones' son, John B. Jones, moved the school to Talequah in the Cherokee Nation. In 1885 the mission school moved to Muskogee, Creek Nation, and changed its name to Bacone, after its first teacher.[2]

When Bacone College was founded (at the time more of a seminary or academy in curriculum level) in 1867, Almon C Bacone was the sole faculty and three students were enrolled. By the end of the first semester, students had increased to 12. By the end of the first year, the student population was 56 and the faculty numbered three.

Bacone appealed to the Muscogee Creek Nation's Tribal Council to donate 160 acres (0.65 km2) (a section) of land for the college in nearby Muskogee. It was the capital of the Creek Nation, and informally known as the "Indian Capital of the World".[citation needed] The Nation granted the land to Bacone and the Baptists.

In 1885 Indian University was moved to a new building at its present site in Muskogee. It continued to develop here. In 1910, it was renamed Bacone College, after its founder and first president.[3]

Almon C. Bacone

Description[]

Ataloa Lodge, art museum on campus

One of the first buildings to be erected was Rockefeller Hall, a three-story building made possible by a $10,000 contribution from philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. "Old Rock," as it came to be called, served as classroom, dormitory, dining hall, chapel, teacher quarters and administration building. It was razed in 1938 and a Memorial Chapel was built in its place. That was destroyed by fire but it was reconstructed in the 1990s. The historic buildings of the campus contribute to the , which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

The campus contains many other reminders of Bacone's history, tradition, and goals. One of these is a small cemetery, the final resting place of Bacone presidents Almon C. Bacone (1880–1896) and Benjamin D. Weeks (1918–1941), as well as others associated with the school. A "stone bible" sculpture marks the spot on which President Bacone and Joseph Samuel Murrow and Daniel Rogers, two Baptist missionaries and trustees, knelt in prayer to dedicate the college. The names of all the college's presidents are inscribed on its surface.

Other structures on campus include The Indian Room at the Bacone College Library, which holds many of the papers of Almon C. Bacone; the Ataloa Lodge Museum,[4] which has a Native American art collection; and the McCombs Gallery, which features a large cross-section of Native American art. This includes artwork by Richard "Dick" West (Cheyenne), an alumnus, former director of the art department and professor emeritus. This artist is best known for his traditional Plains-style artwork. The gallery also holds work by Woody Crumbo, the only American Indian to receive a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship. Collectively, the traditional, flat-style painting movement developed by Blue Eagle, Crumbo, West, and others is known as the Bacone school.

In 2011 Bacone College acquired the Northpointe Shopping Center. It renamed the complex as Bacone Commons, and moved the campus library and important offices there.

Centers[]

Bacone College has three centers to help fulfill its historic mission of Indian and Christian education.

Center for American Indians:

  • Preservation of the American Indian Collections at Bacone College.
  • Coordination of American Indian degrees and cultural programs.
  • Research related to the future of American Indian education and collections in higher education.

Center for Christian Ministry:

  • The broad umbrella for spiritual life on campus that helps the College to fulfill its mission as a four-year liberal arts college affiliated with the American Baptist Churches.

Center for Church Relations:

  • As Baptist churches support the college with students and scholarships, this center develops leaders for evangelization. It also provides training to non-traditional learners through online and off-campus education, assisting churches in their growth, providing music and preaching/teaching ministry to churches for special events, and continuing education for church leaders.

Athletics[]

Bacone College teams, nicknamed athletically as the Warriors, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing independent of a conference affiliation. Until 2019, the college competed in the Sooner Athletic Conference (SAC), while its football team competed in the Central States Football League (CSFL) until the sport was discontinued in 2018. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, soccer and track and field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track and field and volleyball.

Bacone Baseball won the Junior College World Series in 1967; a school with total enrollment of 250 competed with schools that had over 20,000. They were led by coach Enos Semore, who went on to coach at Oklahoma for 23 years.

Because of financial difficulties, in 2018 Bacone dropped its football, volleyball, golf, and rodeo teams. After several tribes agreed to charter the college in 2019 and ensure its survival, the college reopened.

As of February 2020, the college has men's and women's basketball, softball, and baseball; men's and women's soccer, and men's and women's cross country teams.

Conversion to Tribal College[]

In the spring of 2018 the college struggled with severe financial difficulties. It began to lay off most employees following commencement and reported that it needed an immediate infusion of $2 million in order to continue to operate: to complete the 2018-2019 academic year and to open in the fall of 2019.[5] The school reopened after cutting programs, reducing the number of faculty, and selling property. Among the properties sold was Bacone Commons, for $2.85 million as part of the College's 2018-2019 financial restructuring.[6] [7]

The tribal nations in Oklahoma collaborated to take over control of the college as a consortium, to revive its history as a tribal college established for Indian education. The tribes would be able to control education of their students and the arrangement would enable them to secure federal funding from the Bureau of Indian Education (in the BIA) as part of the government's treaty responsibilities to educate American Indian students.[7]

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians approved a charter agreement in April 2019.[8] In July 2019, the Osage Nation announced that it would charter the school as a tribal college.[7] In August 2019 the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians also agreed to charter the college.[8] The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes approved a charter in September,[9] and the Kiowa Tribe in February 2020.[10] (The Muscogee (Creek) Nation chartered its own College of the Muscogee Nation.)[7]

Notable people[]

Administration and staff[]

Alumni[]

Faculty[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Thornton, Russell, ed. Studying Native America: Problems and Prospects. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999: p. 84. (retrieved through Google Books, 30 August 2009) ISBN 978-0-299-16064-7.
  2. ^ Meserve, John Bartlett. "Chief Lewis Downing and Chief Charles Thompson (Oochalata). In: Chronicles of Oklahoma> Volume 16, Number 3. September 1938. Archived 2013-10-29 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved July 19, 2013.
  3. ^ Wright, Maurice C., "BACONE COLLEGE A HISTORY" (1968). Graduate Thesis Collection. p. 25. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/25
  4. ^ "Ataloa Lodge Museum". Archived from the original on December 12, 2006. Retrieved November 26, 2006.
  5. ^ Justin Shrair (May 8, 2018). "Bacone College Closing, Laying Off Staff Unless Funding Is Found Soon". News on 6. Retrieved May 10, 2018.
  6. ^ Corey Jones (July 14, 2019). "Bacone College seeks tribal status to bolster American Indian education opportunities while trying to regain financial stability". Tulsa World. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Osage Nation to charter resurgent Bacone College". Tulsa World. July 6, 2019. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b "Bacone College secures third tribe's charter in its goal to gain status as a tribal college". Corey Jones, Tulsa World, August 11, 2019. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
  9. ^ "Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Agree to Charter Bacone College as a Tribal College". Bacone College, February 12, 2020. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
  10. ^ "Kiowa Tribe becomes fifth to charter Bacone College". Bacone College, February 20, 2020. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
  11. ^ "Daniel Roberts UFC".
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Elder, Tamara R. "Ataloa (Mary Stone McLendon)". The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  13. ^ Hunt, David C. Crumbo, Woodrow Wilson (1912-1989). Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. (retrieved 30 August 2009)

Further reading[]

  • Lisa K. Neuman, Indian Play: Indigenous Identities at Bacone College. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013.

External links[]

Coordinates: 35°46′37″N 95°20′05″W / 35.77694°N 95.33472°W / 35.77694; -95.33472

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