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The history of Benedict College is an extraordinary story of ordinary people using their gifts to write an epic story of faith, strength, courage, leadership, service, and relentless perseverance that reflect the best traditions in African American history. In 2020, Benedict College celebrates 150 years of pushing boundaries, guiding passions, and lifting voices.
When the void in educational opportunities for recently freed African Americans in Columbia, South Carolina, needed to be filled, it was a woman, Bathsheba A. Benedict, who stepped up, led the way, and founded Benedict College in 1870. An anti-slavery activist, Bathsheba Benedict, of the American Baptist Home Mission Society purchased an eighty-acre abandoned plantation on the outskirts of the city to serve as a school for freed people. A year earlier, the Freedmen’s Bureau had funded the building of the Howard School, Columbia’s only public school for African Americans, but Bathsheba Benedict opened Benedict Institute to train the next generation of teachers and preachers in South Carolina. She believed that the education of the mind and the nurturing of the spirit were the greatest tools for a successful life. The Mather School, founded in 1867 in Port Royal in Beaufort County by Rachel Crane Mather, a northern teacher associated with the American Baptist Missionary Association, merged with Benedict College in 1968. The school was founded to teach newly freed enslaved children. The curriculum consisted of reading, writing, the Bible, English, and domestic arts. Later Mather became a boarding school for girls.
Benedict Institute on December 5, 1870, set out from humble beginnings in a dilapidated slave master’s mansion to prepare men and women to be “powers for good in society.” Tuition and room rent were free. During the first quarter century of its existence, Benedict Institute’s educational program addressed the severely limited economic and social conditions of the African American population in the South. The Institute’s original objective, therefore, was to train teachers and preachers, and its first curriculum included reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and religion. Later, the curriculum was expanded to include the traditional college disciplines and an industrial department offering carpentry, shoemaking, printing, and painting. On November 2, 1894, the institution was chartered as a liberal arts college. Currently, Benedict College is a private co-educational liberal arts institution with over 2,000 students enrolled in its 26 Baccalaureate and two graduate degree programs.
During the first quarter-century of its existence, Benedict Institute directed its educational programs to the severely limited economic and social conditions of the black population in the South. The Institute’s original objective was to educate and train teachers and preachers, therefore, Benedict’s first curriculum included reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and religion. Later, the curriculum was expanded to include traditional college disciplines, which also included an industrial department offering carpentry, shoemaking, printing, and painting.
On November 2, 1894, the South Carolina Legislature chartered the institution as a liberal arts college and the name “Benedict Institute” was formally changed to “Benedict College.” From its founding, Benedict College was led by a succession of northern white Baptist ministers and educators. However, the year 1930 signaled the succession of African American male presidents that continued until June 30, 2017, when Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis was unanimously appointed by the Benedict College Board of Trustees as the 14th and first-female President of Benedict College.
Benedict College has been highly regarded and exceptionally ranked for its programs by several academic and traditional publications. For example, Benedict College was ranked as one of the top baccalaureate colleges in the nation by Washington Monthly magazine for creating social mobility, producing cutting-edge scholarship, and research.
Benedict offers several high-demand fields of study in cybersecurity, mass communication, sport management, business administration, engineering, computer science, biology, psychology, and education. Benedict has a diverse faculty of which 70 percent are full-time, and 60 percent hold doctorates or the equivalent.
There are more than 18,000 proud Benedict Tigers throughout the nation. Benedict College has been a community leader for over 150 years and is a significant contributor to the region and South Carolina, with a local and annual economic impact of over $130 million.
Going against trends, Benedict College has enrolled 50% male students while maintaining an equal female population. This Midlands HBCU welcomes students from all 46 counties in South Carolina, 30 states across America, and 26 countries across the world. The College made front-page news in the spring of 2018 when it became the first South Carolina college to lower its tuition by 26 percent. Cutting tuition drew praise from the Commission on Higher Education, South Carolina’s education oversight body. The commissioner noted the move that Benedict College has made should be applauded because it offers students more access to higher education and affordability.
In March 2018, Benedict College hosted South Carolina HBCU presidents, in collaboration with the White House Initiative on HBCUs and UNCF with the goal to change the narrative on the impact of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a member of the Benedict College Board of Trustees, joined the 8 South Carolina HBCU presidents in examining a recently released landmark study commissioned by UNCF, HBCUs Make America Strong: The Positive Economic Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The report demonstrates that Benedict College is a valuable economic engine in the community, generating substantial financial returns year after year, contributing $130 million and 1,218 jobs in total economic impact. A Benedict graduate working full-time throughout his or her working life can expect to earn $1.1 million in additional income because of their Benedict College degree.
Whatever era there has been, whatever challenges that have existed, and whatever milestones that have been achieved, Benedict College has stood tall for more than 150 years and answered the questions, met the challenges, and sent more than 18,000 of her graduates back to their families, back into their communities, across the nation, and around the world to be transformative agents in the places, where “the golden sunshine falls.”
Benedict College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award baccalaureate and master’s degrees. Contact the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Benedict College.
Five of the College’s degree programs hold national accreditation: The School of Education, Social Work, Environmental Health Science, Studio Art, and the Tyrone Adam Burroughs School of Business and Entrepreneurship.
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