<p>Mini (and anyone else), what can you tell me about Guilford? How does it compare academically to Earlham? Any insights into the student body or campus atmosphere? Thanks for any thoughts you may have.</p>
<p>You're talking about the Guilford (the only one I know) in North Carolina, right? It's in a very appealing area of the country. I greatly enjoyed the business trip I made to that part of NC back in 1997.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I have a friend whose daughter is at Guilford. She's a very bright and interesting girl, but marches to a different drummer. She participated in Americorps after high school. Guilford was then the only college she had any interest in at all. But that's all I know.</p>
<p>WHen we lived in NJ our neighbor's son (she's from NC and went to Chapel Hill) went to Guilford........I"d never heard of it until then......I think its Quaker, originally</p>
<p>Guilford is a Quaker college. Small, very liberal. It's a beautiful campus on the outskirts of Greensboro. My daughter and I visited last year. The one thing that struck us was the inclusiveness we saw there. Go to the cafeteria and you'll see a real mix of students instead of a table of white students, a table of black students, etc. like we saw at so many other colleges. Guilford was generous with merit aid. D ended up at Smith instead but only after much agonizing. I don't know much about Earlham to make a comparison.</p>
<p>Thanks all --- My daughter also marches to a different drummer and is attracted to schools with quirky student bodies. I'm trying to find a few good safeties for her that fit the bill and Guilford looks like it might be a good one. Kriket, my D. would really like the inclusiveness you mention - that's something she really wants in a college. So, I'll add to the list of schools for her to look at. Did you get any sort of feeling about the level/quality of academics at Guildord when you visited? Thanks.</p>
<p>Quirky it is! Kriket hit it well. And very beautiful! (I spoke there two years ago, and I have friends on the faculty.) Academically not as strong as Earlham. Very liberal, with a long and distinguished history of same going back to before the Civil War, where they were a center of the Underground Railroad and resistance to southern conscription. Not strong in music or art, though they are working on it, and upgraded recently (it is the Quaker "thing".) Heavy in Quaker values - students on the Board of Trustees and they work by consensus (so they can't be outvoted); Bonner scholars - students paid to go out and work in the community. 90% receive some form of financial aid.</p>
<p>The most famous grad is "Lloyd B. Free". Folks remember him? He was a basketball player who went pro in the 70s and was a big-time scorer. He changed his named to "World Be Free" - that way, every time he scored, the announcer would have to say "Two points for World Be Free".</p>
<p>Captures the essence of Guilford.</p>
<p>I'll see if my D has any comments on academics at Guilford. She sat in on a couple of classes & talked to an advisor. Right now she's in the middle of exams at Smith. I can tell you that the admissions staff is much more parent friendly then most, but your D & mine don't care about that!</p>
<p>Thanks Kriket and Mini. My daughter has a clear picture of what she wants in a school and we've found several good fits that are either matches or reaches - Lewis & Clark, Earlham, Goucher, Beloit, possibly Oberlin (a reach reach!) - but it's hard to find some good safeties that fit in the liberal and quirky mode which is why Guilford caught my eye. The art program may be problematic, although so long as there IS an art program, she'll be happy. She is particularly interested in history and secondary school education.</p>
<p>I do know that the chair of the art dept. - david watson - does some very interesting sculpture work, and they've always had folks doing ceramics. and it should also be said that outside of the women's colleges of the same size - Scripps and Mills - not too many little colleges have terrific art departments.,</p>
<p>Mini, very true, that's a problem at many smaller schools. I've actually been surprised at a few schools that actually don't even offer an art major, just a few elective classes. Amazing that schools can call themselves "liberal art" schools and not offer any sort of studio art or even art history! We've also found that even in schools that have decent art programs, non-majors often have a difficult time getting into higher level classes. </p>
<p>She probably doesn't want to major in art (although I can't help wondering if a strong encouraging art program might push her in that direction) but art is very central to her life so not having enough options for art is a definite negative. I'll take a closer look at their art class offerings and see if its enough to keep her satisfied for four years.</p>
<p>As an aside, one thing that I have noticed about both Earlham and Guilford is that they do not take the traditional approach to marketing. They basically explain what they are and leave it at that instead of trying to convince kids that they can satisfy EVERYONE's needs. Guilford actually has a kind of neat quiz program on its admissions site --- just for fun I filled it in with "anti-Guilford" choices (i.e., I want a school with lots of frats/sororities, etc.) and the result was "Guilford is probably not the right school for you. Good luck in your search." I thought that was kind of neat (By the way, when daughter took the quiz, she scored 120 out of 120...)</p>
<p>Carolyn --</p>
<p>I recently spoke with my brother (who went to Earlham) about Guilford. He visited there when he was looking at schools, but did not end up applying. He thought Guilford seemed like a slightly run-down version of Earlham. But he seemed to think that the students seemed about the same (though maybe slightly left of Earlham students) and the academics seemed pretty comparable. I did not realize this, but he told me that he was told that the contingent of Quakers that originally settled in Indiana came from North Carolina (I always thought that they probably came from Pennsylvania -- shows what I know).</p>
<p>I know that you have looked at these two schools, but what are your impressions of Warren Wilson College and UNC-Asheville as safeties for your daughter? Both have extensive arts programs and both consider themselves liberal arts colleges. As I am sure you know, while both institutions are considered pretty liberal, Warren Wilson is considered to be more of the "hippy school". Also, I think that Asheville is in a beautiful area of the country and the city has a very nice artsy feel to it. I get the sense that ever since the famous experimental Black Mountain College set up shop in the region in 1933, this area in the western part of North Carolina has become a haven for artists. It seems like these two schools may appeal to your daughter's sensibilities.</p>
<p>Folks often don't realize it, but Pennsylvania was not the largest Quaker colony (and William Penn settled in the southern half of New Jersey, not Pennsylvania.) The two largest were Rhode Island and North Carolina.</p>
<p>Most Friends freed their slaves, and provided reparations to them voluntarily, prior to the American Revolution, the exception being North Carolina (and eastern shore Maryland - won't go into that one.) The problem in North Carolina was that the law was written as such that if they freed their slaves, they could be taken in by other masters. Lots of thing were tried - Friends freed their slaves on their plantations, but then the slaves could only move between Quaker homes. They tried having the slaves held in the names of the Meetings, or in the names of New York Meetings, but to no effect. Finally, in two great waves, in 1805 and 1820, some 20,000 Friends, with their "slaves" moved north to southern Ohio and Indiana, centered around the areas where there are now two Quaker colleges - Richmond, IN and Wilmington, OH. The slaves were freed, and many helped northward to Canada. The second wave included Levi Coffin, the father of the Underground Railroad and the Cincinnati Free Goods Store (essentially the first socially responsible mail-order company, selling goods without taint of slave labor.) It was this wave that founded Earlham.</p>
<p>A small remnant remained behind in North Carolina, mostly in the area north and west of Greensboro. They formed the New Garden Boarding School (later Guilford College), and became the center of southern resistance to slavery. During the Civil War, they were beset on all sides, and relatively few Quakers remain in the area. They are best remembered today by the song which is often known as the Quaker hymn - "How Can I Keep from Singing?", a white spiritual (actually written by a Presbyterian woman in New York in the 1840s), but with strong anti-slavery overtones.</p>
<p>I can't comment on Guilford, but I don't really care for Greensboro. I taught at A and T a long time ago, my sister went to UNC-G, and my wife and I visited friends there a few years ago. It may be a nice place to grow up but it doesn't stand out as a college town. It's boring, but less so than Winston-Salem.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>The second wave included Levi Coffin, the father of the Underground Railroad and the Cincinnati Free Goods Store (essentially the first socially responsible mail-order company, selling goods without taint of slave labor.) It was this wave that founded Earlham.</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Levi Coffin's family first settled in the US at Salisbury, MA -- seacoast town on the Mass/NH border. They later resettled to Nantucket Island and offspring began spreading out to other areas. Levi moved to Carolina. Another Coffin (Lucretia Coffin Mott) married another good Quaker named Mott and moved to Philadelphia, where she and her husband participated in the Underground Railroad and founded another Quaker college -- Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Lucretia is considered to be one of the first women's rights advocates. She and her husband attended an anti-slavery convention in England, but she was not allowed to participate because of her gender. This lead to her interest in equal rights for women and her participation in organizing the Seneca Falls Convention where the first Declaration of Rights for women was issued.</p>
<p>Amazing what a small world it was and the connections among many of these people.</p>
<p>Actually, Levi Coffin was born in Greensboro in 1798. During the wave of migration from North Carolina, some of the Coffins actually went back to England (I know some of them.) Others joined the forced migration of Indians from Ohio to Oklahoma.</p>
<p>It looks like Levi's father moved as a young boy with his family from Nantucket to North Carolina in 1773. There just wasn't enough land on Nantucket for all the Coffins!</p>
<p>The first Coffin arrived from England in about 1640, settling in many of the towns around where we live. For example, we have a Coffin Street in our town. One of the original Coffin family houses (built in 1678) is still standing and operating as a historical site in the next town over.</p>
<p>Lucretia's branch of the Coffin family stayed on Nantucket, where she was born five years before Levi.</p>