Editing Spring Hill College (section)

==History==
[[File:Cardinal Joseph Fesch.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Cardinal [[Joseph Fesch]], an early benefactor of the college]]
Spring Hill College was founded by the first [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile|bishop of Mobile]], [[Michael Portier]], who was from France. After purchasing a site for the college on a hill near Mobile, Bishop Portier went to France to recruit teachers and raise funds for the new college. Portier recruited two priests and four seminarians from France to staff the school. A friend of Portier, Cardinal [[Joseph Fesch]], [[Archbishop of Lyons]], was a major benefactor to the fledgling College, donating his philosophical and theological library and various works of art. [[Pauline Jaricot]], founder of the [[Society of the Propagation of the Faith]], donated 38,000 francs, an enormous sum in those days.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}}

The bishop himself taught theology to the ecclesiastical students, who numbered six the first year. Upon his return from France, Portier rented a hotel next to the college grounds and started the first semester on May 1, 1830, with an enrollment of thirty students. On July 4 of the same year, the bishop laid the cornerstone of the first permanent building. It stood on the site of the present Administration Building and opened for classes in November 1831. Spring Hill is the oldest institution of higher education in Alabama and among the oldest colleges in the South. It is the third-oldest Jesuit college in the United States.<ref name="Boyle">{{cite book |title=Gleanings from the Spring Hill College Archives |last=Boyle |first=Charles J. |year=2004 |publisher=Friends of the Spring Hill College Library |location=Mobile |isbn=1-887650-24-5 }}</ref><ref name="mission">{{cite web |url=http://www.shc.edu/about-shc/employment/hiring/the-mission-statement-of-spring-hill-college/ |title=The Mission Statement of Spring Hill College |publisher=Spring Hill College |access-date=April 4, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723213128/http://www.shc.edu/about-shc/employment/hiring/the-mission-statement-of-spring-hill-college/ |archive-date=July 23, 2011 }}</ref>

[[File:Spring Hill College 02.jpg|thumb|left|The original main building, built in 1831. From a 1905 picture]]
In 1836 the governor of Alabama, [[Clement Comer Clay]], signed a legislative act that chartered the college; the following year, four graduates received their degrees.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}}

The first two presidents of the college were called away to be bishops, one to [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque|Dubuque, Iowa]] ([[Mathias Loras]]), the other to [[Vincennes, Indiana]] ([[John Stephen Bazin]]). The third president, Mauvernay, died after a brief term of office. Portier transferred the college, first to the French [[Fathers of Mercy]], and next to the [[Congregation of Jesus and Mary]], but both groups lacked teaching and administrative experience.<ref name="encyala"/>

He persuaded the Fathers of the [[Lyon]]nais Province of the [[Society of Jesus]] (Jesuits) to take possession of the college.<ref name="encyala">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1029 |title=Spring Hill College |author=Charles Stephen Padgett |date=February 22, 2007 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Alabama |access-date=April 4, 2010 |archive-date=September 12, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110912091728/http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1029 |url-status=live }}</ref> The new regime was inaugurated with [[Francis Gautrelet]] as president in September 1847. Since that time the institution has continued under Jesuit direction.<ref name="Boyle"/>

Many boys were sent to Spring Hill during the [[American Civil War]] as they neared the [[Conscription in the United States|draft]] age. But numerous students wanted to be part of the war effort. The college eventually formed two military companies. Some of Spring Hill's Jesuit fathers became chaplains for the Confederacy. A recruiter tried to conscript all forty of the Jesuit brothers at the college into the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate Army]]. The college president, Gautrelet, dispatched an urgent message to the assistant secretary of war in [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], who granted a temporary reprieve of the brothers' conscription.<ref name="encyala"/>

[[File:Spring Hill College Quad 01.JPG|thumb|The second main building, now the Rev. Gregory F. Lucey, S.J. Administration Center, built in 1869]]
During the [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction era]], the college recruited students from among the sons of Central American and Cuban leaders. Following student complaints that Spanish was challenging the dominance of English on the campus, the Jesuits organized a Spanish–American league.<ref name="encyala"/> In 1869 a fire destroyed the main building. Students and faculty had to relocate for a time to [[St. Charles College (Grand Coteau)|St. Charles College]] in [[Grand Coteau, Louisiana]]. [[John Quinlan (bishop)|John Quinlan]] and other benefactors assisted in rebuilding the college, which reopened at Spring Hill before the year's end.<ref name="Boyle"/>

As the enrollment increased, Quinlan Hall, St. Joseph's Chapel, the Thomas Byrne Memorial Library, and Mobile Hall were erected. In 1935, the high school, which had been a unit distinct from the college since 1923, was discontinued. In the space vacated by the high school, the Jesuit House of Studies was opened in 1937, and the Scholasticate of the Sacred Heart opened on a site adjoining the college a few years later.<ref name="Boyle"/>

After [[World War II]], a great influx of veterans taxed the facilities of the college, which erected numerous temporary buildings on the campus to handle the new students. At the request of Archbishop [[Thomas Joseph Toolen]] of Mobile, the college became [[coeducation|co-educational]] in 1952.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}}

As a Southern college, Spring Hill did not admit black students for the first 124 years of its existence. It played a significant role in educating the region's plantation owners and slave holders, especially in Louisiana, where many wealthy whites were Catholic. It eventually admitted its first black students in September 1954, a few months after the Supreme Court ruling in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954) that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional<ref name="Encyclopedia of Alabama 1956">{{cite web |title=Spring Hill College |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |date=February 22, 2007 |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1029 |access-date=July 7, 2020 |archive-date=August 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813031507/http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1029 |url-status=live }}</ref> Mrs. [[Fannie E. Motley]] was the first black graduate from the institution in 1956.<ref name="Boyle" />

Even that late start made Spring Hill College comparatively early in educational civil rights for Alabama's African Americans. In his 1963 "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]," Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] said he "commend[s] the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago."<ref name="Boyle"/>

On the night of January 21, 1957, a dozen or more darkened cars entered the main avenue of the college. [[Ku Klux Klan]] members tried to set up a kerosene-soaked cross outside Mobile Hall, a dormitory. They were unaware that they were there during finals week. Most of the white, male residents were still awake, studying for exams, and several heard the hammering. Once alerted, students streamed from both ends of the building carrying whatever items were handy as weapons – golf clubs, tennis rackets, bricks, a softball bat – and put the panicked Klansmen to flight. A KKK contingent returned the next night, burning a cross at the gate of the college before students reacted. The following day, a group of students – male and female – hanged a Klansman in effigy at the college gate, with a sign reading, "KKKers ARE CHICKEN."<ref name="McDermott2007">{{Cite news |last=McDermott |first=Jim S.J. |title=A Professor, a President and the Klan |newspaper=America, The National Catholic Weekly |location=New York |date=April 16, 2007 |url=http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=5414 |access-date=July 24, 2009 |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011014753/https://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=5414 |url-status=live }}</ref>

On July 27, 1963, [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] spoke at Spring Hill about life in the Soviet Union, at the invitation of his cousin, a student at the college.  His speech was considered controversial because of strong opposition in the United States to communism during the Cold War. <ref>[https://mobilebaymag.com/flashback-lee-harvey-oswald-visits-spring-hill/ "Flashback: Lee Harvey Oswald Visits Spring Hill"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220808131743/https://mobilebaymag.com/flashback-lee-harvey-oswald-visits-spring-hill/ |date=2022-08-08 }}, by Chris McFadyen, ''Mobile Bay'' magazine, January 23, 2014</ref><ref>[https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth337292/ "Letter to Lee Harvey Oswald from E. J. Murret, August 22, 1963"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220808131800/https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth337292/ |date=August 8, 2022 }}, The Portal to Texas History</ref>  His lecture took place months before he assassinated President [[John F. Kennedy]] on November 22, 1963.<ref name="Summaryof">{{Cite web |title=Summary of a Speech by Lee Harvey Oswald, Jesuit House of Studies, Spring Hill College Mobile, Alabama, July 27, 1963 |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/ce2649.htm |access-date=July 27, 2008 |archive-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106195058/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/ce2649.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Following Hurricane [[Hurricane Katrina|Katrina]]'s widespread destruction along the central [[Gulf Coast of the United States|Gulf Coast]] in 2005, Spring Hill accepted 117 students, the majority of them from [[Loyola University New Orleans|Loyola University]] in [[New Orleans]], a sister Jesuit institution, for the remainder of the year.<ref name="loyola">{{cite journal |url=http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/Conversations/No29_2006/29_lorenz.pdf |last1=Lorenz |first1=Alfred Lawrence |issue=Spring 2006 |title=Katrina Strikes and Southern Jesuit Colleges Survive |journal=Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education |publisher=National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education |volume=29 |access-date=April 7, 2010 |archive-date=November 3, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091103112645/http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/Conversations/No29_2006/29_lorenz.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

On January 1, 2023, [[Mary H. Van Brunt]] became president of Spring Hill College, serving as the college's first female president.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Sharp |first=John |date=2022-10-12 |title=Alabama college announces first woman to serve as president in its 200-year history |url=https://www.al.com/news/2022/10/alabama-college-announces-first-woman-to-serve-as-president-in-its-200-year-history.html |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=[[AL.com]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=President's Office |url=https://www.shc.edu/about-spring-hill-jesuit-college/spring-hill-college-administration/presidents-office/ |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=Spring Hill College |language=en-US}}</ref>